The famous animated documentary film Waltz with Bashir attempts to and does draw our attention on turning against wars. As an anti-war film, Waltz with Bashir applies a highly unique form and an original narrative perspective. However, there are also voices saying that this film can actually not be classed as a documentary but should be concluded as a mockumentary due to the insertion of fictional matters, the facts that the film is completely scripted and etc.
Before categorizing the film into a final shot, I would like to refer to the definition of "documentary". Merriam Webster Dictionary defines "documentary" as "a movie or television program that tells the facts about actual people and events" ("documentary." Merriam-Webster.)1. Besides, I personally would like to define "documentary" as a movie or television program that objectively presents matters, mostly historical, such as news and events, in a factual, truthful and informative manner without fictionalizations. This essay is composed, with reference to my definition, to against the idea of recognizing this film as a mockumentary, or in other words, to support that Waltz with Bashir is a documentary.
The clip we have watched during classes mainly contains two parts: Protagonist's dream and a visit in early morning to his friend. In the first part, in addition to the fact that all things have been animated, yellowing camera also devotes contributions to make the scenes look surrealistic. The protagonist was seeing people hastily fleeing away, with panic shouting and trepid faces, like what he had seen long time ago during the war. It is not possible for a person to experience seeing memories happen again in the reality, which means that fictionalizations did have been applied a lot in the first part in search of a battle reenactment. However, according to the definition, fictionalization is not supposed to appear in a documentary, so from this aspect, Waltz with Bashir may should be concluded as a "mockumentary" instead.
