Waltz with Bashir: Popular Animated Film Released as a Graphic Novel

Posted by Jan Frel at 4:39 AM on January 25, 2009.

Writes TomDispatch's Tom Engelhardt, "As a 19-year-old Israeli soldier, Ari Folman took part in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and was on duty in Beirut during the notorious massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Just a week ago, Waltz with Bashir, the animated documentary film Folman directed in which he explores his own nightmarish, half-suppressed memories of that period, was given its first underground screening in Lebanon -- not far, in fact, from Hezbollah headquarters in southern Beirut -- though the film is officially banned in that country. It has also been screened in Palestinian Ramallah and is reportedly soon to be shown in the Arab Gulf states. It has already won six Israeli Academy Awards, best foreign film at the Golden Globes, and is now nominated for an Oscar as best foreign film."

Waltz with Bashir (read Sheerly Avni's review, published on AlterNet) has now been turned into a vivid graphic novel, and can you read excerpts of it digitally on TomDispatch.  It's interesting to watch how a compelling story can jump through various forms of media. Shooting War, a graphic novel set in Iraq in the year 2011, took the opposite path; it started out as a web comic in SMITH Magazine, later became a full graphic novel, with an excellent animated trailer to promote it.