"It's Fine as Long as You Draw, But Don't Film": Waltz with Bashir and the Postmodern Function of Annimated Documentary

Animated documentary Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008) became Israel's official entry for consideration for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, for which it was eventually nominated. It was the first animated film in history to be so appointed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This paper attempts to move the literature concerning animated documentary a small step forward by positioning Ari Folman's film as not only a meditation on memory (as other commentators and Folman himself have characterized it) but also a critique of photographic realism. Superimposing Wells's (1997) taxonomy of animated documentary types (imitative, subjective, fantastic, and postmodern) over Roe's (2010) insistence that one must consider the function of animation in documentaries rather than types of animated documentaries, I suggest that Waltz with Bashir demonstrates within documentary a postmodern function for animation.