Waltz With Bashir

"Waltz With Bashir" is an Israeli film I just saw about a middle-aged man struggling to remember his experiences as a soldier during the invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980's. For some reason he only remembers fragments, so he sets out to find as many old comrades as he can to talk to them about what happened in order to hopefully jog his own memory.

The main theme, about the nature of experience and memory, is pretty Buddhist-related. But another Buddhist-related theme in the film has to do with our ability to maintain an honest awareness of our actions and their consequences. Sometimes we know that we are contributing to suffering (of others or even ourselves), but we don't want to deal with reality so we just don't think about it. We fail to take responsibility for our actions. This is a challenge, for example in the context of being a person in a relationship, a soldier in a war, or a consumer in an economy. The film does a great job of exploring this.

In my own life I value my daily meditation practice because it helps to slow the world down for me, so that I can try to be more observant of my own actions including how they affect others. (official film site)