Waltz with Bashir was made in an entirely animated except for the last few minutes of the movie, which I think worked wonderfully for the movie. This style gave the movie a very dreamlike kind of trippy feel to the movie, and this works perfectly with the main character's post traumatic stress disorder and lack of memory of what really he did during the war. This made me think of the movie Waking Life, which was a movie that was actually filmed, unlike this one, but worked on after filming on computers to give it an animated look. The main character in that movie is lucid dreaming and the style and the dreamlike feel of Waltz with Bashir reminded me of the feel of Waking Life.
Another reason why I think this worked very well for the film was it made the film different from every war film. There have been many antiwar films in the past, and it is a theme that will be visited many times again in movies, but this being animated as well as being in the 1982 Lebanon war were two things that definitely set this movie apart and different from other films of this sort.
At the end of the movie when the movie when it switches to live footage it makes the movie real again. It makes the movie feel even more real then other war movies that used actors since the beginning because you know it is fake from the start, and they never do anything to change it up. In Waltz with Bashir when at the end of the movie it switches to actual live footage of the massacre it makes you realize that this really happened and leaves you with a really powerful image.
I agree that it did bring the movie to life, but really, I think without it the same message would have been sent. It is terrifying to see the fright in those women's eyes, but I was so drawn in by the entire movie that I think I would have felt the same way without the real footage, though it was quite powerful.
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