I spoke with director Ari Folman yesterday. He made a film called Waltz with Bashir, an animated feature about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and a particular massacre that happened at the Palestinian refugee camps there. It's up for an Academy Award and has won countless other awards. And while it is about this particular time in history, it really looks at the fluid and intangible nature of memory and observes how animation can aptly reflect that. We don't remember events or even recount events as static talking heads but they exist inside of us much like a dream does. That's what Richard Linklater was attempting to represent is Waking Life and I believe that is why he decided to make his film animated (he painted over the stills, Folman had artists recreate the stills). Folman brought up an important point in our interview which was why don't people ask the creators of Wall-E or even Bambi why they chose to use animation. Why is it ok for a seemingly light topic but when it comes to something sad, challenging, discontent it becomes another issue entirely.
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