This had been sitting on the box for a few weeks. I thought that Jimmy would like it, but he was put-off by the subtitles being white on an often light background. I found that irritating, but only in a minor way compared to the film as a whole.
I am not familiar with the genre of adult* cartoon feature-films, although I have often as an adult watched Disney-style cartoons. I was really impressed by the way it was used in this film.
I was amazed by how the use of cartoons made the humans seem more realistic or at least naturalistic than would have been possible using actors. Facial expressions and the movement of bodies seemed more akin to real people behaving un-self-consciously than would actors pretending to be those people. Graphical portrayal allowed for graphic detail that may not have been permissable live - most notably the blood being mopped from a van, and, somewhat hilariously, the porn film (plumber visits woman at home) that was being shown on the TV in a seized villa.
The film's subject was harrowing - an Israeli soldier trying to recall his participation in the Sabra and Shatilla massacre. I sort of remember this, I was 14 and therefore paying attention to the news and reading the Guardian most days, but I lacked the intellectual or emotional maturity to understand and the experience to put into a context.
The film was made from the viewpoint of the Israeli soldier and was in Hebrew; it was not, however, overtly propagandist for Israeli bellicosity. I suppose the underlying theme was that conscript soldiers, not much older than I was at the time, were just thrown out of their depth into something they didn't understand and weren't really in control of. They shot indiscriminately, and they bulldozed Beiruit with their tanks, and none of them looked back with any pride at that time. ~And, ultimately, it was the Lebanese Phalangists who were blamed for the actual massacre.
I wasn't entirely comfortable with the POV but it never tried to disguise that most victims were non-combatants, not did it try to provide a moral justification for Israel's actions.
Its strength lay in its message about the horror of war; this was achieved by amazing animation, excellent dialogue, and a powerful soundtrack. As long as you can deal with white subtitles on an often light background, I would highly recommend it.
* by which, I mean, target audience, grown-ups, preferably with brain attached, not, nudge nudge wink wink. Can we reclaim the language, please?
