The Oscar-nominated animated documentary Waltz With Bashir puts a new spin on the typical conventions that we have come to know and believe about war especially involving the Israel and its Middle East counterparts.

Director and writer Ari Folman is suddenly struck with memories from his time in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict of the early-1980s when a friend of his describes an upsetting — and recurring — nightmare. The friend relates that he is being chased by 26 vicious dogs. The two men conclude the dream is a connection to their Israeli Army mission from the first Lebanon War.

After this meeting, Ari starts to have nightmares of his own. He starts remembering things he had previously suppressed and forgotten. Ari then makes it his goal to find out exactly what happened during his service in battle, and find out what his role in the conflict was.

Ari follows up this conversation with a journey in an attempt to collect the pieces of the puzzle to re-establish old memories. As Ari meets fellow soldiers, war correspondents and others with knowledge on the subject, he starts to better understand and remember his role and the role of the people around him. As the film progresses the memories he recreates as he collects more pieces, become more vivid than the ones that preceded them.

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Ari starts to view the conflict not with the view of an Israeli soldier, but with the view of a human being looking back at horrific events and almost feeling ashamed and guilty for being involved in them.

The film becomes less of a commentary on war, and more of a commentary on how war affects the human psyche, and what the lasting effects are on all that were previously involved.

The film culminates in a visceral experience of images and sounds that hit you in the stomach and brings you to the same realization that Ari has come to: There is no such thing as good war, and that it has long lasting affects on all involved.

What is most interesting about the film is not only that it is a documentary but that it is an animated documentary. Folman uses animation in the way that many other films use dream sequences. The film becomes more vivid and detailed as it progresses by using the animation to add more detail to each segment that follows. In a way the audience goes on the journey with Ari because as he gets a better picture in his own head we get a better picture of the war itself.

As we see images of an animated war, in which two sides we have come to view as natural enemies, we think little of it as it builds on the sentiments we already hold. But as the vividness of the film increases it helps to create a foundation to help breakdown our conventions and convictions and humanize the conflict as something between people, not between military machines. Overall 3 1/2 stars out of 4.