Waltz with Bashir (2008)
director Ari Folman melds together Stanislaw's novel 'The Futurological
Congress' and the career of actress Robin Wright for this odd but moving mixture
of live action and animation. Wright plays a fictional variation of herself, a narrative
device made popular after Being John
Malkovich (1999, Spike Jonze) and one which allows filmmakers to play
around with a star's persona. In The
Congress Wright becomes a washed-up Hollywood
dropout living in an airport hangar with her two children Aaron (Kodi
Smit-Mcphee) who is losing his hearing and idealistic teenager Sarah (Sami
Gayle). Wright has spent the intervening years since her early success in The Princess Bride (1987, Rob Reiner)
driving her agent Al (Harvey Keitel) nuts by making bad career choices.
A lucrative offer from 'Miramount' studio boss Jeff (Danny
Huston) to submit to an experimental new technique designed to replace ageing
actors with CGI avatars so they remain forever young forces Wright
to make a final decision on her acting career. Fade way or remain onscreen as
an A-list simulacrum. Huston's casting may be a nod towards his role in Bernard
Rose's fuck you to Hollywood
Ivans XTC (2000) which combined the
tragic life of agent Jay Moloney with Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich.'
Here however the satire is laboured and feels inauthentic. Though he makes fair
points about how the industry sidelines women over forty and audiences are
complicit in their preference for younger stars Folman has never made a Hollywood movie and it shows. These kinds of attacks work
better when those involved have done time there like Rose and have scores to
settle.
Folman is on stronger ground adapting Lem's story about a
future where people imbibe chemicals allowing them to escape from reality into
a fantasy world of their own construction. Both filmmaker and novelist share
thematic interests. Waltz with Bashir is
essentially a journey through Folman's memories to uncover a moment lost to
him. Likewise Lem's work particularly in 'Solaris' deals with the hold the past
can have over a person especially if loss is involved. Twenty years after
signing away her career and letting her CGI replacement take over Wright is
summoned to a meeting in an entirely animated world called Abrahama. Though this
place is supposed to represent a new medium replacing motion pictures Abrahama
has the retro feel of a Twenties cocktail party and the look of the animation
resembles the work of old cartoons. People take comfort in the past, turning
themselves briefly into Hollywood idols, or in the case of a lovelorn computer
programmer Dylan improving their own physicality by turning himself into a tall
dark and handsome matinee idol lookalike. Dylan is affectingly voiced by Jon
Hamm who possesses one of the loveliest and saddest voices around. As Wright
searches for her missing children in this strange new world The Congress becomes another mesmerising
waltz through a dreamscape, once again set to a haunting Max Richter score.
The Congress is
bound to divide audiences and admittedly it can infuriate as well as mesmerise
often in the same scene. Yet any film featuring Robin Wright singing Leonard
Cohen tracks, impersonating Sterling Hayden, and confessing she may have
married unsuitable men has my vote. The
Congress also features a remarkable monologue delivered by Harvey Keitel
which is at once a confession of betrayal and of love which is worth the price
of a ticket alone.
The Congress
Written by Ari Folman,
based on 'The Futurological Congress' by Stanislaw Lem
Directed by Ari Folman
Running time 122 minutes
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