“All Quiet on the Western Front.” “M*A*S*H.” “Platoon.” Now comes “Waltz with Bashir” [picture]. They are stories of ordinary people caught up in the horror of war. As such, they bring the costs of war home to us in a powerful way that can’t be ignored. War IS hell. Experiencing the hell of war via a movie helps drive a population away from war as an option, as it should.What works best, I think are stories of average people ripped out of civilian life, and sent off to war whether or not they wanted to fight. In other words, draftees. It’s why “Waltz with Bashir,” about ordinary Israelis who find themselves in Lebanon in 1982, comes across with so much force, and why Hollywood’s series of anti-Iraqi films all bombed. However “ordinary” our soldiers and marines in Iraq are, they all volunteered for service, including the benefits military service provides families today. None were draftees. Huge difference.
Still, “Waltz with Bashir” is so very current, immersed as it is in the primary challenge the world faces today—the willingness of Palestinian, Arab, and other Islamic terrorists to die for the cause of ridding the Muslim world of secular or non-Muslim modernists allied with the West. No nation has worked harder to cope with this threat than Israel. “Waltz with Bashir” shows how much more difficult the struggle has become since 1982 for that small nation of just 5.3 million Jewish people.
1 comment:
You have given me the incentive to see the movie. I spent two summers in Egypt working with teachers who work in the small village schools in order to have the girls go to school until they are literate. They certainly need our support.
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