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To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger.
Ari Folman, the Israeli screenwriter and director of Waltz with Bashir, did not anticipate the impact his film would have on so many fellow soldiers of the 1982 Lebanon war, as well as on veterans of other wars. Not only did it have an impact on veterans, but also on their families: children, parents, friends, and intimate partners. The film touched a chord and scratched a scar; it opened up the possibility for many untold stories to emerge.
In the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Folman says:
I received responses from women, who told me this was the first time they were able to understand what their husbands or sons went through. The film made them understand something new; they told me it gave rise to a dialogue that did not previously exist at home. (Ben-Simhon, 2009)
As I walked out of the screening of this film in November 2008 I had an immediate flashback: the aroma of coffee cooked over the smoldering embers of a village fire, sounds of barking dogs echoing through empty streets, and the smell of burning flesh flooded my consciousness. I was aware of what was happening. I had experienced this in a much more intense form about twenty years ago when I was trying to process my mixed feelings of confusion and guilt about my participation in the Lebanon war.