Lisa (1962)

“Lisa” is a movie I watched and wondered, I’d like to read the book; I bet it’s better and bolder. Not to trivialize this drama set in post-World War II 1947 about an Auschwitz survivor seeking entry into Palestine, that is, what we now call Israel. Dolores Hart is Lisa, and her passage is set by a Dutch inspector (Steven Boyd) who comes to love her, yes, but is more driven by his failed actions during the war to save his fiancée from the Nazis. This is all vital, especially Lisa’s grim suffering at the hands of Nazi doctors, but it’s also played way heavy-handed with dialogue smothered by Hollywood orchestra music that feels misplaced. And as great as Ms. Hart -– now a nun -– is, Boyd is played so square-jawed stiff, you just want to pop coins off the guy. A sea of horror lurks at every step, political, religious, sexual, but, every time it comes a boil, someone -– studio, director, test audience? –- slams the lid shut, cues up the music, and wants us to concentrate on pretty faces and scenery. There’s much missing. B

Waltz with Brashir (2008)

Picasso’s “Guernica” has come to life. The Israeli animated documentary film “Waltz with Brashir” is the first cartoon (too light a word I know, I can’t think of another) that has left me absolutely speechless with horror and sadness over man’s constant desire to kill because his God is better than the other guy’s God.

“Waltz” is told from the perspective of writer/director Ari Folman, a veteran of the Israeli Army, who fought and killed in a 1982 war with neighbor Lebanon. While there, Folman witnessed a massacre of hundreds of Muslim men, women and children by vengeful Christian militants and his own troops, but doesn’t recall it.

That’s the peg of this film: Recalling the seemingly unforgettable. It’s a disturbing, beautifully told and painted tale with a hard “R.” As fellow veterans and then Folman speak of their memories, we see war action rendered in vivid, bloody detail, with chucks of almost expressionist imagery filling the screen. Blood, too.

Is the film accurate? I don’t know. It makes no bones about the tit-for-tat violence that religious zealots of all stripes visit upon each other, and even suggests that Israel’s war crimes can be compared a certain 20th century war demon.

That Folman fades to live action in the finale to show real unfathomable carnage – bullet-riddled, desecrated women and children and old men in piles – is a shock almost unbearable too watch. With “Presopolis,” the animated film genre has made some mind-bending strides in recent years. This is one of the best. A