In 1982, following the assassination of Lebanese president-elect
Bashir Gemayel, Israeli Defense Forces allowed the Lebanese Phalangist
militia to enter two Palestinian refugee camps, where they slaughtered
at least 300—and possibly as many as 3,000—civilians.
Filmmaker Ari Folman, at the time an Israeli soldier, was there, but he
can’t remember a thing. “The truth is, that’s not stored in my system,”
he says.
Attempting to excavate his suppressed memories, Folman recorded
interviews with fellow soldiers, journalists, friends, and his
therapist; he then animated their accounts in a series of dark,
disjointed, somnambular episodes. The finished product is stunning:
weird, angular dreams of snarling dogs, bodies wrapped up in shining
bundles, yellow skies, silent swimming, sudden death, gigantic women,
boys walking out of the sea, and people being swallowed up by shadows.
Somehow all of it feels more accurate than any film
documentary—certainly one based on painful and foggy
recollection—ever could.
The full story of what happened in Lebanon in 1982 emerges slowly,
as Folman’s aging Israeli peers grapple with the implications of their
involvement—however peripheral—in an organized massacre
(the capital-H Holocaust looms frequently on all sides). All the humor
and horror of teenagers at war—forging friendships, playing
music, joking, killing, dying—comes across with calm, wry
honesty, thanks to Bashir‘s narrators: middle-aged men trying to
uncover a youth that they’re not sure they want to remember. 
Not great animation, but compelling with moments of splendor. The story is told in flashback with the players more than 20 years older than when events took place. That gives the film a kind of depth it might not have had otherwise. Was it real or was it a bad dream? It was both.
I actually really liked the animation. It was fairly simple, but extremely effective. Certainly don’t go see it for ground-breaking techniques in animation. However, the use of animation (for example, for subtle scene changes as memory becomes more real than reality) was fantastic.
The animation was brilliant and proof that animation can be more than a Pixar/Disney glossy, CGI, bright and shiny entertainment.
It’s a sad indictment of the Oscars that they nominated crap like Kung Fu Panda and Bolt over this film for Best Animated feature.