Just in case you still have not heard of this Israeli movie which has been banned in Lebanon.
In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, he meets with a friend from the army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to his experiences from the 1982 Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find out that he does not remember a thing from the same period. Later that night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre the reality of which he is unable to tell. In his memory he and his soldier friends are bathing at night by the seaside in Beirut to the light of flares descending over the city. Folman rushes off to meet another friend from his army service, who advises him to discuss it with other people who were in Beirut at the same time to understand what happened there and to relive his own memory. The film follows Folman in his conversations with friends, a psychologist and the reporter Ron Ben-Yishai who was in Beirut at the same time.
The film takes its title from a scene in which one of the interviewees, the commander of Folman’s infantry unit at the time of the film’s events, grabs a light machine gun and “dances an insane waltz” amid heavy enemy fire, on a street festooned with huge posters of Bashir Gemayel.
When the movie was banned, Dr. Tarek Mitri (Minister of Information) said the ban is silly because people can get anything from the internet. And he was right, the movie is widely available on the internet now.
So how to download it?
- It is available through torrent sites. You first have to install a torrent client, I recommend BitTorrent wich you can download from here.
- Get the torrent file that will let you download the movie. I already uploaded the torrent file to +961, and you can click here to get it.
- Assuming you have installed the BitTorrent client by now, double click on the torrent file and wait for the movie to completely download.
Update:
Download the english subtitles for Waltz With Bashir by clicking here.
Note that you should place the subtitles file in the same directory as the movie file, the subtitles will then appear automatically when you play the movie in your media player.
I also want to see this movie and I don’t understand, why it was banned, it is really very stupid, my fried saw it and recommend me also to see it, so I am going to download it, I cant miss this chance.
I saw this movie in Los Angeles and to be honest, I would not recommend it to anyone. I went in with an open mind as there’s a lot of hype about it, but it was one of those movies thats trying TOO hard to be sophisticated, edgy, and make a statement. I don’t mean to oversimplify the complex subject matter that the movie tried to tackle, but it was done in a boring way that lacked a plot.
Going further, as one might assume, it takes any kind of blame for Sabra & Shatila off of the shoulders of Israel and places everything squarely on the Phalangists. Israel appeared to be the Palestinians’ hero and savior, though we all know that is certainly not the case. Watch it for yourselves & try to keep an open mind!
Certainly it SHOULD not have been banned. If Dr. Mitri is the Minister of Information and he opposed the ban, why did it go through?
Thank you for the review Karen 🙂 I still have not watched it as it is still downloading!
But I didn’t understand you question about the movie going through, do you mean about the UMAM organization who screened the movie a while ago?
Hi Rami 🙂
I was confused about who is in charge of censorship / banning the movies (and other forms of media). If Dr. Mitri is minister of information, shouldn’t he be able to repeal or remove the ban? If I remember correctly, he played a key role in allowing Persepolis to play in Lebanon.
I hope he does remove the ban, it would be interesting to see how “they” see things from their own perspective, at least for me…
Oh and let him distribute a pirate copy to the movie theaters, and screw Ari Folman 😛
Rami, thanks for the copy however is there any chance we could get English subtitles?
@ Anonymous:
I have updated the post and included a download link for the subtitles file, let me know if you need any help.
You are mentioned on Wikipaedia under Waltz for Bashir
Im hoping a panel would rate/ban the film, not one minister
I would like to watch this film