DVD OF THE WEEK

WALTZ WITH BASHIR *****
Dir: Ari Folman
Voices: Ari Folman, Ronny Dayag, Ron Ben-Yishai

Oscar nominated and winner of many other awards, Waltz With Bashir is an unlikely combination of documentary and animation. It is in Hebrew with English subtitles. But don't let any of those possibly off-putting elements deter you or you will miss a truly remarkable film.
Writer/director Ari Folman, like many other young Israelis, joined their army to fight in the 1982 Lebanon war, during the course of which the Sabra and Shatila massacres took place, in which Palestinian men, women and children were massacred by Christian Phalangists as revenge for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel. Though the Israelis were not directly responsible for the killings their army was complicit in the slaughter.
Years later Folman found that he had no memories of the war or massacre. This film is his search for the truth through talking to friends and his fellow soldiers about their own recollections of events. It mixes interviews – where the characters are voiced by the real people - with their vivid dreams, such as the striking opening scene of wild dogs that haunt one soldier. The beautiful and unusual animation is the perfect medium to blend there disparate strands.
It is not only a very personal film but one which tackles wider issues and is not afraid to compares Israel's activities in Lebanon with atrocities in past wars.
What emerges is a unique voyage, using cinema as psychoanalysis, creating a record of the past and also a warning for the future, a film which manages to be strangely beautiful and, in its honesty and quest to discover secrets of the past, moving and memorable.

Inkheart (***) is yet another middle of the road fantasy offering but has the good sense to cast the ever-watchable Brendan Fraser in the lead. Fraser and his twelve-year-old daughter, Meggie, share the gift for bringing storybook characters to life when they read aloud. This is dangerous, as when a storybook character appears a real person disappears onto the book. Thus Fraser is searching for his wife who years ago was lost in the titular book, wherein lurks the evil Capricorn (Andy Serkis). It's all good clean fun, with a lashing of not-too-bad special effects to add a bit of magic to proceedings.

Robert Carlyle stars in I Know You Know (***) as an international man of mystery jetting from one exciting undercover spying mission to another while looking after his eleven year old son Jamie. But not all seems right with this scenario and even Jamie starts to wonder if his father has been telling him the real truth. It turns out to be less a spy film than a Welsh character study of the bond between father and son, anchored by a fine turn from Carlyle and really impressive work from young Arron Fuller as the confused but resourceful son.

Writer David S Goyer has a mixed record, being involved with the Blade films and the new Batman outings, but his new directorial effort, The Unborn (**), is a bit of a mess, probably best suited to shut-ins who will rent it because of the cover image Odette Justman's pantied bottom. Taking its hook from Jewish horror mythology, the film finds her menaced by the 'ghost” of her died-in-the-womb twin brother which is, in fact, the incarnation of an evil ancient spirit, a Dybbuk. Despite incidental scares along the way, by the time Gary Oldman's exorcist turns up thing have pretty much turned to custard.

Can anyone actually follow the plot of the Underworld series? In the third entry Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (*) we flash back to the 'days of yore” and the original war between vampires and werewolves (sorry, lycans). Expect another interminable and incomprehensible plot, direction by the special effects guy from the first films that casts everything in a pervasive blue gloom, and Rhona Mitra – the low-rent Kate Beckinsale – in place of… Kate Beckinsale.