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VISTA ON A WALL BETWEEN THE MASSACRE

Tuesday 25 November from 18:30
(Month Documentary)
"Perspectives on Massacre"
WALTZ WITH BASHIR Ari Folman
MASSAKER of Monika Borgmann, Lokman Slim
In partnership with
Mediatheque Louis Aragon and Alinea
With Pierre Stambul Vice President UJFP
(Union of French Jewish for Peace)

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MASSAKER
A film by Monika Borgmann, Lokman Slim and Hermann Theissen





From 16 to 18 September 1982 for two nights and three days, "Sabra and Shatila," capital of the Palestinian presence civil, political and military Lebanon is set to fire and blood.
Twenty years later, six participants in the massacre that shocked the world public for the first time tell their murderous excesses and barbaric. Neither
parody of court or therapy session, lets talk Massaker killers to open beyond the massacre, a reflection on the communal violence.




Interview

What are the personal motivations that led you to make this film?
Monika Borgmann: Violence is a phenomenon that fascinates me a long time, more exactly, what drives a man to become violent and commit certain crimes. I also believe that the issue of violence is a universal question. I mean, then it must be possible to search everywhere for answers to this question, despite the historical, cultural and political context in which it occurs. So when I had the idea of making a film about mob violence, the massacre of Sabra and Shatila has imposed itself as an obvious topic. The project idea dates back to 1996, but it was not until 1999 that I met the first person involved in the massacre. I spoke with her two hours, and this conversation was born the project.

Lokman Slim: I was in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the massacre. The house of my parents is about one kilometer from the camp. During the massacre, rumors ran that terrible things happened in the camps. People even came to take refuge in our garden. But nobody really knew what was happening. Everyone was still reeling from the assassination of Bashir Gemayel. And then the second day of the massacre, a section of the Lebanese Forces stormed home. My mother called someone from the Lebanese army, they came with tanks and protected the withdrawal of the militia out of our house and neighborhood. So I have very personal memories of the massacre. Two days later, I went there and I saw members of various medical organizations like the Red Cross, who buried the victims. The massacre of Sabra and Shatila has remained etched in my memory and has continued to raise many questions about the idea of responsibility and human nature.

Hermann Theissen: In 1995, Monika Borgmann and myself as a writer / director / editor respectively, have produced a documentary for the German Radio Deutschlandfunk, dedicated to the survivors of Sabra and Shatila. It was an important document because it commemorated the almost forgotten massacre. It analyzed the circumstances of the killings organized, we showed the responsibility of the international community and the Israeli army and, more importantly, it gave voice to the traumatized survivors. But despite all that, I felt something was missing. In the eyes of survivors, the killers were obviously stupid, the following years, I worked on the civil war in former Yugoslavia and I was facing the same issues there. I also took part in the debate over the books of Daniel Goldhagen (Hitler's Executioners : The average German and the Holocaust) and Christopher Browning (Ordinary Men: Reserve Battalion 101 the German police and the Final Solution in Poland). When Monika Borgmann told me in 2001 that it had found a killer involved in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila and she asked me to participate in the film she had performed on these killers, I have immediately Having a chance to find some answers to my questions.

Why did you decide to talk exclusively with the executioners?
M.: Listening to the survivors, we learn something about their essentially personal suffering, which is naturally very important and should not be evacuated. But we believe that there are at least two major reasons for talking to the executioners was essential ...

L. ... If we want to know more, for example, the contractors, the logistics managers, etc ..., we can not obtain such responses survivors. Only murderers can answer. In other words, if we want to reconstruct an event like this, we need also the words of the torturers. And if we are to understand the mechanism of individual and collective violence, we must also listen, know how they felt while they were committing these crimes ...

H. : There are many films about victims and survivors of the massacres. In general, when you watch, you identify the survivors and you are not forced to "understand" the killers. But as history has repeatedly shown, the brutality, is part of the range of human possibilities. I confront these people has therefore been difficult but useful, as it was difficult to find a good balance between the feelings of hatred they inspired me and an intellectual understanding of their actions. I think that such a confrontation will be equally painful and useful for the spectators and it will discuss these issues.

How have you found and how did you manage to convince them to talk? Mr.
: We have taken as a basic principle not to disclose their identity. But also point out that the six men who appear in the film are now living among us, within the Lebanese society and lead a normal life.

L. : We were asked the same question during a discussion Beirut, after the screening of Massaker, and I said this: "All the Lebanese who open their address books will find the phone numbers of several people who participated in the war." During this "civil" war, many massacres have been committed by all parties involved, not only by the Lebanese Forces: which means that everyone in Lebanon has neighbors who may have committed the same kind of crimes. The massacre of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon remains a taboo. It will take a political change takes place in this country before they can learn more and that the Lebanese responsibility in this massacre to be recognized.

M.: Finding the executioners was something easier than we thought. Build with them a relationship of trust sufficient to enable us to turn was rather more difficult.

L. : It took us time to build a trusting relationship with these men. We were listening. We have never adopted the attitude of judges or accomplices. We just spent a lot of time listening to what they told us about their personal history during this war, their lives too. Thus was developed a relationship of trust. During this period, which lasted several months, we have relatively rarely mentioned or discussed at the Sabra and Shatila. It was just sure they were there that day. We were afraid of losing the spontaneity of the first interview. And so it is that time of the shooting that we asked them to talk in detail about their actions during the massacre.

Have you encountered problems during the preparation of the film?
M.: Yes. In late September 2001, we found five people who had actually participated in the massacre. For some reason that escapes us today, the Forces Security has been informed of their involvement in this project and have adopted all five.

L. : The five men were arrested, my apartment was searched and we have even the next day was "invited to a coffee" in an office of State Security or supposedly. We spent eight hours during which they questioned us. Subsequently, the five men were tried and convicted for lying about their involvement in the massacre.

M.: After their arrest, we had to start from scratch. It was November 2001. And this time, we have even more attention than before, so we did a sort of double life for several months.

Why men have decided to talk? M
.: We felt they needed to talk. And how they so quickly forgotten the presence of the camera surprised us. Ultimately, one could say that this shoot was for them a kind of therapy, even if we never tried to be their therapists. It was the first time they spoke in detail of the massacre, and this is probably the last - a reaction, after all, understandable.

L. : In 1991, an amnesty law was passed. So, nobody in the State does not wish to speak today about these events, or even that they evoked. And perhaps one reason that prompted our schedules witnesses to talk.


they Experiencing remorse over the atrocities they committed?
M.: They feel more pity for themselves than for their victims. None of them does the massacre in question or to request, if only indirectly, any forgiveness. This can be explained by the fact that they were acting in time of "civil war". They were both perpetrators and victims: each has lost a family member, friend or relative.

Do you think this amnesty law was a good thing for Lebanon?
H. All the massacres committed in Lebanon during the "civil war" are now taboo. That is what Hermann Lübbe named the "communicative silence" about the post-war Germany. But in Germany, we had the Nuremberg Trials and, in 1968, opened a debate on the issues of responsibility and guilt. In South Africa, the truth commissions have opened the road to reconciliation. In Lebanon, there is always a "communicative silence" and former "warlords" are still among the spheres of power and high society. So why the "street people", they show any remorse when their superiors are continuing their career with impunity? In addition, almost all institutions of this society were involved in "civil war" and killing: the rich families and their clans, the Communist Party as well as Christian churches and Muslim organizations, the Syrians, Israelis, Palestinians, etc. ... So far, none has shown any effort of self-criticism. So somehow, we could say: "Until now, civil war has not ceased."

L. This film is a protest against a culture of amnesia. Lebanon will not have the chance, every time a crime is committed, to see an international commission to look into. This film is, among other things, a call to the Lebanese so that they assume their present and future as well as their past so long violent.

Some executioners who decided to speak did they reverse?
M.: One of them changed his mind at the last minute. For weeks, the agreement was a fait accompli, but he did not attend the day of filming. In the film, one of the torturers was that some militiamen have refused to enter Sabra and Shatila by saying: "We can not commit such acts" and they came away without being punished.

L. : It was one of them. He had left his section and had returned home. A few hours later he came back up because he voluntarily was afraid of being excluded from his section or to appear to others as a coward. So he came back, shot a man in her bed and was again left home. But he had proven his section and he was a man and his "manhood" could be questionable. His story speaks volumes about the mechanical group, its structure and what is called collective violence.

How have you planned and organized the filming?
million. : We tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. We were a very small team. Nina Menkes was the director of photography, Hermann Theissen and the sound engineer and I Lokman interviewers. We do not interfere with each other. There was a deep understanding between us. We knew exactly what we wanted to achieve and how. Lokman was conducting the interview. What also helped us is that we are a man and a woman, a Lebanese and a stranger, a man speaking perfect Arabic, and a woman talking much worse. These differences have allowed us to ask our questions differently.

Why did you concentrate on body language of the executioners?
M.: This idea dates 1993. I conducted a lengthy interview with a former "sniper" of Lebanon. And during this conversation, how was moving the man sitting across from me seemed much more interesting than what he said. Or at least, more precisely, the two languages complement each other. Insofar as we knew from the outset that these murderers have neither faces nor names, their body language could be a bias of filming.

You made a number of formal narrative choices as the use of plans outlining the features of the massacre, photos, to the evocative power of words. Can you elaborate?
L. : Lors du tournage avec notre tout premier témoin, je lui ai demandé de dessiner un plan représentant la manière dont le massacre s’était déroulé. Et j’ai été surpris par la précision de sa mémoire. Cette idée permettait en outre de vérifier leurs informations. Si bien que nous avons décidé de leur demander, à tous, de dessiner de tels plans. Au stade du montage, nous n’avons pas cependant utilisé cet élément dans ce but précis. C’était simplement un élément visuel qui était, en tant que tel, très « beau » également. L’un d’eux a une fonction supplémentaire : je veux parler the circle at the beginning of the film. This plan is so minimalist that it gives the film an almost universal and allows visually evoke many other massacres like those of Poland, Rwanda or Cambodia.

M.: I would like to add something about the photographs. It was important for us to confront these killers to photos of their victims and see their reactions. We found on the Internet, or in easily accessible archives. As to the preparation, we discovered a lot about the personalities of our witnesses, and we then thought about how we would put in the presence of these photos. An example: we knew that one of them, in private, is a painter. Lokman has had the idea to place before it is rolled prints as a canvas. During assembly, we have nevertheless chosen to show the reactions of the most varied and strongest.

L. : We have edited the film so that the shock comes from the way that make the words in the mind of the beholder. This is not the visual content of the film itself nor the few archival photographs, also very blurry, which cause the horror but the floor.

Why did you use two different editors ?
M.: In Germany they first worked with the first editor, Bernd Euscher. But his conception of the film was totally different from ours. We suspected that this would be a difficult film to rise from the outset. Because the principle of the shooting was as follows: to be closer to the body of the executioners when they speak, which is not at all clear. He refused this approach and wanted to create a distance and protect themselves. Thus we interpret it, anyway. So, Lokman and I returned to Beirut and took over the editing process from scratch with Anne Mo. The agreement between three of us was perfect and the movie is proof.

Why have turned into places so anonymous? On what basis have you selected?
L. : We wanted decorations anonymous because they reinforce the universal significance of the film. Was therefore ruled out any plan of Beirut, Lebanon camps. Then most of the torturers have families and we could not film them at home. Therefore, we had to find other places where privacy of a particular film could also be preserved.

M.: Only one witness was filmed at home, simply because lives in a sort of "no man's land. This is the man to cats. The show was an absolutely conscious decision. That allowed him to become human. Of course these men are murderers and criminals, but it is primarily men. Film their body allowed us to highlight their "human side".

Have you been able to verify the veracity of the facts related by these six men?
L. : During the preparation of the film, one of the things we had to give priority, among others, was precisely to be certain they were well attended the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. This is the case: we can confirm that they have participated directly in an active way to these massacres. On the question of content and truth of their testimony, to judge you must keep in mind two things: First, they demonstrate twenty years after the fact, and finally, although their testimony is in our proved, the only way to know exactly what happened would have access to the archives of different countries and different organizations involved in this massacre: Israel, Lebanon, the USA, France, Great Britain, Italy, the PLO, the Lebanese Forces. We must also remember that the massacre took place after the withdrawal of UNIFIL in Lebanon, and once committed, no international commission has been formed to investigate. In addition, you should know that 60 hours filmed, there are only 100 minutes. Items not selected, "falls" also contain information on the massacre, even though they were not retained in the final cut, confirm what we heard there. Finally, last but not least, our initial goal was definitely not a documentary investigation the massacre of Sabra and Shatila.

How does your film have been received in Beirut as part of the event "Violence and memories of civil war" that you organized in September 2005?
M.: Okay. We are pleased that he has caused much discussion in the press after the screening. Lebanese censorship allowed us to project a time in this event but we hope that other screenings will take place one day. Our film answers, it seems, need a Lebanese civil society, even if it is a source of controversy. One of the most finest compliments we received was as follows: "Your film have been devoted to the massacre of Damour or another, it would not have been very different because you have shown is essential. While the political motivations change, what is said on violence remains the same. "It goes back to what said one of our six executioners:" Kill the first time is difficult, at least the second time, the third still less, and then it does not change anything. "

HISTORY OF LEBANON


The country derives its name from Mount Lebanon, the name "Lebanon" (also "Loubnan") comes from the Aramaic word Laban means "white" by reference to the snows of the Lebanese mountains.

Countries Middle East, Lebanon is bounded on the west by the Mediterranean Sea (225 km of coastline) and east by the Syro-African Depression. The country shares its borders with Syria about 375 kilometers north and east, with Israel on 79 km south.

The population of Lebanon is composed of various religious communities: Christians Catholic (Maronite), Muslim (Shiite and Sunni), Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics Melkite, Armenian Catholic and Orthodox Israelis, Protestants, Copts, Druze and Alawite, Chaldeans, Syrian Catholics.

is estimated that the number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is between 160,000 (low estimate) and 225,000 (high estimate). In this country of 3 million and half inhabitants, an estimated more than 150,000 the number of Lebanese dead and 100 wounded 000 since 1975. Approximately 900 000 people, moreover, were displaced.


13 April 1975. Morning. Shooting one dead Inthe the inauguration of a church by Pierre Gemayel. In the afternoon, Machine Gun Falangists attacked a bus traveling in the same street, and massacred some of his Palestinian passengers. This is the beginning of the civil war.

1976
The Christian militias destroy Palestinian lescamps quarantine and Tell el Zaatar. Palestinian militias are killing people in the town of Damour. Maronite leaders calling for help and endorse the Syrian intervention. Syria sent 40,000 men to support them and fight the Palestinians. The Lebanese president and the head of the PLO convened in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are asking them to recognize the legitimacy of the presence of troops syriennesau Lebanon, and formalize the establishment of the Arab Deterrent Force (ADF).


15 March 1978. Israeli Likud leaders launch Operation Litani River and invaded southern Lebanon.
March 28. Israel withdrew its forces from the constraints of UN resolution 425 but multiplies armed incursions, causing an exodus of 200,000 Lebanese.
July. Deployment of United Nations Interim Force auLiban (UNIFIL). Israel withdrew from Lebanon but leaves the control of a "security belt" of ten kilometers deep in the "Army of Free Lebanon", an isolated fraction of the regular army, to prevent the advancement of Palestinian forces in the far south.
September. The Maronites rebelled openly against the presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon and the labor put Syria on the Lebanese state.

1982
June The forces of the PLO has never ceased to attack Israel with blows of light artillery or rockets, the Israeli army launched an offensive errestre, besieged West Beirut and faces the Syrian forces in the Bekaa.
August Elect Bashir Gemayel, considered by some as a supporter of Israel unacknowledged, as President of the Republic. A multinational force is deployed in Beirut to oversee the withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon. September 14. Assassination of Bashir Gemayel, a member of the Syrian National Socialist Party.
16 and 17 September. Lebanese Forces militiamen into the camps of Sabra and Shatila virtually encircled by Israeli forces and engage in a bloodbath.
September 21. Election of Amin Gemayel, brother of Bashir Gemayel as president. The United States provides financial support for rebuilding the administration, infrastructure and army. An agreement was signed stipulating the end of the state of war and an Israeli withdrawal conditional simultaneous withdrawal of Syrian and Palestinian forces. Amin Gemayel dissolved command of the Arab Deterrent Force.


April 1983. An attack against the U.S. Embassy killed 63 people and left 100 injured.
August Shouf region is subject to conflitentre the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Druze and the Lebanese Forces. Walid Jumblatt wins Christians and forcing people to flee.
October 23. Suicide bombings are causing the death of 256 marines and 56 French soldiers. The attacks are claimed by a shadowy Shiite organization, the Islamic Jihad. Kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut multiply under the leadership of Hezbollah emerged in 1982 under the leadership of Khomeini Iran.

1987
June Prime Minister Rashid Karami, pro-Syria, was assassinated.


September 1988. The mandate of Amin Gemayelarrive futures and parliament fails to meet and elect a new president. Gemayel appointed his chief of staff, Michel Aoun, head of an interim military government. Aoun began a war against Syria. This establishes another government, which is more favorable, led by Selim Hoss.

1989
The joint efforts of deJordanie King Hussein, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and Algeria's President Chadli to lead to a cease-fire and a comprehensive parliamentary meeting aimed at "national reconciliation". The National Assembly met in Taif, Saudi Arabia and adopt constitutional amendments supporting Muslim communities. Rene Mouawad was elected president, but he was assassinated 17 days later. Parliament elects Elias Hrawi, a Maronite member close to Syria. Aoun opposes the agreement and attempts to extend its control to areas controlled by the Christian Lebanese Forces.

1990
Defeat General Aoun, the United States that endorsed the tutelage of Syria over Lebanon in exchange for his support for the Gulf War.

1992
Held the first parliamentary elections since 1972. Rafiq Hariri was appointed prime minister and trying to restore the balance disturbed by the boycott by Christians. Syria alliance with a disincentive to the Christian opposition.


2000 May 22 Israel withdrew completely from southern Lebanon sestroupes consistent with resolution 425 passed (in 1978) by the Security Council of the United Nations.

2004
Motion 1559 of the Security Council of the United Nations requires that "all foreign forces leave Lebanon" to allow the free tenued'élections. The same motion aussique demand an end to military activities of Hezbollah and calls milicechiite deployment of the Lebanese army across the border.


14 February 2005. The former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed in an attack. Syria is singled out.
February 28. 70 000 Lebanese, mostly Sunnis, Druze and Christians protesting against the Syrian presence.
March 8. The pro-Syrian parties are organizing an event-cons which brings between 500,000 and 800,000 people to denounce the attempted interference by Western powers in the Syrian-Lebanese affairs.
March 14. The Lebanese opposition to Syrian occupation and the pro-Syrian regime in place in Beirut gathers
800 000 to 1.2 million people on Martyrs' Square and demanded the truth about the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the departure of Syrian presence and the head of government of Omar Karami.
April 26. The UN confirmed the complete withdrawal of Syrian military forces from Lebanon (without commenting on the withdrawal of the intelligence services).
July 19. Formation of the government of Fouad Siniora, a Sunni, a childhood friend and right arm of the late Rafiq Hariri. With the exception of the parliamentary bloc of General Michel Aoun, all political tendencies are represented, including for the first time Hezbollah.

WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Ari Folman

In "Waltz with Bashir," Ari Folman recalls trauma individually and collectively. His and his country. The choice, very inflated, film animation refers to a concern for exemplary story that everyone in Israel can be recognized through these drawn characters and ordinary, decidedly non-heroic. What is this past that does not pass? How memory has it arranged with disturbing memories? Why a quarter century after the fact, the film's main protagonist, Ari himself, then, is a victim of recurring nightmares?
Gradually, the identity puzzle fits together. At twenty Folman was a soldier in the IDF. In Lebanon, in 1982, he knew the horror of battle and the bloody madness at work. The highlight, if we dare say, the massacres of the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila perpetrated by the Christian militias, following the assassination of Lebanese president Bashir Gemayel, under the eye (at best indifferent) of the Israeli army.
The film pushes the timeline. Mixes the present and snatches the 1982 events. Ari portrays his subjective inquiry. He goes to see his pals at the time. Traces with them a common youth. Warns them of his ambitious plan ("This film is a therapy"). The reminiscences are embodied on the screen. Depart for Lebanon.



Musings erotic ward scared. Immersed in the daily bombings and the Lebanese quagmire. Permissions intermittent. Accelerated Learning in adulthood. Political and military fuzzy ...
Facing the collective refusal to see themselves in the skin of the torturer
Why a memory so crumbly? What have we desired so as not to see? The great strength (aesthetic and political) "Waltz with Bashir" is in this double issue that arises Folman himself and puts his country. Sort of historical psychoanalysis, the film in barely half past one, holds up a mirror to Israel and disturbing to her children. And it dares to even say that only an Israeli can- national consciousness that bad against this highly troubled past may be explained by a collective refusal to see themselves in the skin of the torturer.
Audacity on the bottom and, of course, boldness of form. Even if one is more or less captivated by the animation style (not a firefighter) developed by Folman, even if we may regret a certain grandiosity (music ubiquitous, over-dramatizing effects), "Waltz with Bashir "remains an atypical and, most historically significant.



At the end of the film, the filmmaker gives up his process. Documentary images (Dead Palestinian despair in the camps, the survivors wandering haggard) follow those of animation. As if having revived the son of his own memory, it was now time for Ari Folman to show what was really happened and he should never forget.

Critique of Emmanuel Burdeau :
(Click on the documents)

Interview with Ari Folman

To go further:

File: Understanding Israel Film
(Click on photo)

3 Excerpts of Divine Intervention to Elia Suleiman:

Links:

French Jewish Union for Peace
http://www.ujfp.org/

Association Act of 1901, French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP) since 1994 to advocate a just peace in the Middle East, and Jewish-Arab dialogue here in France. We conduct many educational activities, solidarity actions and dialogue initiatives, locally as the entire national territory.

Association France Palestine Solidarité
http://www.france-palestine.org/

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