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Special features include behind-the-scenes look at Israeli documentary
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Published on Sunday, Jun 21, 2009
Waltz With Bashir is one of those movies that grabs you with its images, haunts you with its words and stays with you long after the credits have rolled.
Nominated for an Oscar for best foreign-language film (which, to the shock of many, it did not win), the movie arrives on video shelves on Tuesday (Sony, $28.96 for DVD, $39.95 for high-definition Blu-ray). Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman re-examines his memories — and the gaps in his memory — of the Israel-Lebanon war in 1982 through conversations with friends from the war.
The war included a horrifying massacre at two Palestinian refugee camps by Lebanese ''Phalangist'' Christian militia, while Israeli forces did nothing to stop it, and even provided flares to light the way for the militia. The death toll is not known but estimated to be as high as 3,000.
The massacre is the climax of Waltz With Bashir. (Bashir Gemayel was a commander of the Phalangists, who was assassinated shortly after being elected president of Lebanon; his death led to the vengeful massacre.) Indeed, the closing scenes are archival footage of the massacre's aftermath.
But the movie has begun to get under your skin long before that, with a combination of vocal recollections and animated images, both of real events and of eerie dreams. And just as you are lost in the spell of those images, Folman breaks free from them at the end, with the real massacre footage, made all the more terrible by the sudden shift in imagery.
It's a marvelous piece of work, whether you are watching it in the original Hebrew with English subtitles, or with an English audio track on the DVD. Other extras include a Q&A with Folman, a making-of segment and a detailed look at the use of video footage, storyboards, the recorded audio and other material to build the final film. The Blu-ray version adds a BD-Live connection for viewers whose players are connected to the Internet.
One content warning: Waltz With Bashir is rated R ''for some disturbing images of atrocities, strong violence, brief nudity and a scene of graphic sexual content.'' Had that sexual content been live-action instead of animated, the film would not have gotten by with just an R.
People looking for lighter fare on DVD on Tuesday could consider a couple of comedies. But each disappoints.
The Pink Panther 2 (MGM, $29.98 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray) is Steve Martin's second foray as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, a man to whom the word ''bumbling'' has been permanently attached. Clouseau was most famous played by Peter Sellers in a series of films, although Alan Arkin also played the role, and Ted Wass was offered as an American variation on Clouseau in The Curse of the Pink Panther, after the death of Sellers.
Martin is very good at farce and physical comedy, and his first Pink Panther did reasonably well at the box office. The second did not, and you can see why early on; the comedy is weak, the gags predictable. Even the elaborate stunts look more like hard work than lighthearted comedy.
The DVD includes a bonus disc of vintage Pink Panther cartoons. The Blu-ray adds other features, including a third disc with a digital copy of the film.
Also attempting to be a charming comedy is Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney), based on Sophie Kinsella's novels and starring Isla Fisher as a broke journalist whose shopping addiction leads her into a job with a business magazine.
Fisher can be very likable and funny, as she was in Wedding Crashers; she's much in the vein of Amy Adams or of Reese Witherspoon in her Legally Blonde films. But Fisher's Confessions of a Shopaholic character, Rebecca Bloomwood, is written as so annoying and foolish that she was making my teeth grind before the movie was even a third over.
The movie is being made available in three versions: a single-disc DVD ($29.99) includes a blooper reel, deleted scenes and a music video; a two-disc DVD ($32.99) adds a digital copy. A two-disc Blu-ray ($39.99) includes the digital copy, the basic DVD extras, plus two more music videos and half a dozen featurettes.
In the context of Pink Panther 2 and Confessions of a Shopaholic, I was much more amused by Table for Three (Anchor Bay, $26.97), a bizarre comedy with Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) as Scott, a single guy whose life is overwhelmed by his new roommates, Ryan and Mary (Jesse Bradford and Sophia Bush). Outgoing to a fault, chatty to an extreme, Ryan and Mary become especially vexing as Scott tries to start a new romance with Leslie (Jennifer Morrison).
While very uneven, the movie still has its pleasures and surprises, including the performances by Bush (whom you may know from One Tree Hill) and Morrison (from TV's House). DVD extras include a making-of piece and audio commentary by writer-director Michael Samonek.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com and on Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Waltz With Bashir is one of those movies that grabs you with its images, haunts you with its words and stays with you long after the credits have rolled.
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