Waltz With Bashir Analysis

In the search for who is the victim in the war, there arose different opinions on whether the perpetrator can be regarded as the victim, some people believe that the perpetrators can never be a victim, because they are responsible for the killing, abusing and raping during the war. But other are hold the different idea, there is a frequently using word in the holocaust research that fits the question—the perpetrator trauma. How can we understand the perpetrator trauma? And how can we distinguish the victim and perpetrator in the war? with these questions, we look into the Folman’ animated movie Waltz with Bashir, which is a very good work for us to dig and see how the war affect the perpetrators in the post-war life, and can we see the perpetrators

as the victim? And how do they cope with their perpetrator trauma.
After seeing the animated documentary film Waltz with Bashir, my view toward victim and perpetrator during the war is breaking down, and from the perspective of an Israeli soldier, I know that they suffered from the trauma of killing and pain.

It is clear for me to distinguish who is the good and who is the evil, who is the victim and who is the perpetrator before. But now, I recognize that the shift in the movie from the trauma suffered by victims to that suffered perpetrators is more complicated than I thought before. The movie seeks to find answers to the question that who is the victim of the war and the answer is also in the movie. As for me, the victims probably have more right to use the event for their personal narrative, but in the Waltz with Bashir, the story teller is an aggressor who kills people and stands there and sees the massacre happen. This narrative shift between victim and perpetrator is one of the most striking moments for me to see the movie and read the book. Because we often read the memory of victims of a war and the way we see the war is through the eyes of them, like the people who survived the massacre or people witness their loved one’ dying. And this story teller is the perpetrator—the soldier of the

war.