ABSTRACT
Waltz with Bashir and Z32 are two recent Israeli films (from 2008) that represent a new genre, one that could be called “documentary horror comedy.”1 Both deal with IDF soldiers’ memories of war atrocities, the madness of violence, the banality of state commands, and the impotence of veteran soldiers and of the filmmakers – in short, the impotence of Israeli civil society vis-à-vis the arbitrariness of the state. To make the soldiers’ testimonies less gruesome and to get some distance from the violent descriptions, the directors borrowed techniques from other genres: Waltz with Bashir became an “animated documentary” and Z32 a “documentary musical” in which even the director sings in an ironic, cabaret style. These movies exemplify the lack of hope and inability even to imagine a non-violent reality in Israel since 2000, a situation that became evident to most Israelis as a result of the second Lebanon War in August 2006. At the end of the most consensual war since 1967, Israeli public debate became completely apolitical, with only military options discussed. The Winograd Commission of Inquiry, established by public pressure to investigate the failure of the war, did not even ask whether there could have been a nonviolent option following the abduction of two soldiers by Hezbollah. It only discussed the decision-making process and “managerial” mistakes of the political and military echelons, suggesting how to manage a more efficient and successful war in the future.
