The opening scene begins with this shot of the street. Immediately striking is the colour palette, which consists of desaturated greys and blues in stark contrast against a lurid golden sky. This wide angle shot immediately sets a tone of neglect – Bin bags line the street, there is discarded litter. Everything is sodden from rainwater and the buildings appear cold, unwelcoming and in slight disrepair.

From here, a rabid dog breaks out from an alleyway left of the frame and runs menacingly in the direction of the viewer. The change of pace is sharp and alarming – from quiet deserted street to sudden violent danger. The dog itself is terrifying, its most scary features – the teeth and manic eyes – highlighted in yellow.

The side angle gives us a better view of the whole dog, showing it to be poorly maintained and hungry – most likely feral.

The camera cuts back to the front view, and we now learn that more dogs have joined the scene.

More dogs join the race. Until now we have no idea where the dogs are running to, or why they run. It could be that they are running away, but something about the determination in their expressions suggests that they know where they are headed. We never see what is seen from their perspective.

In the next shot, we get for the first time an overhead view of where the dogs are headed. We see a city opening up ahead, with lights and possibly a car in the distance. We understand that the dogs are running into a populated area, and at once the threat is apparent. The dogs look as though they will maul the first thing they see, and we have no reason to believe otherwise.

Here, the first interaction appears between the dogs and the wider world. A car is forced to break as the hounds streak across the road. The dogs do not stop to consider the vehicle or its driver and instead continue with determination, as though blind to everything except their destination.

Next shot shows the dogs running through a narrow street and their reflection in the corner mirror. Here we can see that there are in fact many more dogs that what was first shown. The use of the corner mirror to show the hunt helps to convey the sense that these animals are invading civilization – these streets are busy and home to many people. What are usually vehicles appearing in this mirror has been replaced with dangerous feral dogs.

The symbolic invasion of civilization and disruption of day-to-day life is even more strongly represented in the next shot, which shows the dogs trampling through a pedestrian crossing. This symbol appears in residential areas where children are living, and so creates a very powerful sense that terror is reaching a calm suburban neighborhood.

The first human is shown – a mother clutching her child. She is unable to move, and has nowhere to go. It is clear that the dogs’ arrival left no time to react, and so the woman stands there, paralysed, and praying that nothing will happen to her or her child. By now the sense of invasion and danger is peaking – the dogs run at such a great pace that nobody can really protect themselves properly.

The next shot, for the first time, gives a glimpse as to where we might be. People are sitting at a cafe on a long street lined with grand trees. This street is recognizable as Rothschild Blvd in Tel Aviv The dogs appear and everyone scrambles to get out the way before the dogs come crashing through, scattering the stools as they pass through. The dogs are unphased by the people or the furniture in their way – they only continue the hunt.

Rothschild Blvd, Tel Aviv. Here you can see a café similar to the one in the movie.

One dog, stops and growls at the man cowering to the right of the frame. This is the first time we have any understanding that the dogs are aware of their surroundings. Why does this dog stop to survey this man? We would assume that the man would now be attacked, but instead the dog moves on and continues its journey with the rest of the pack.

The dogs continue on their path down Rothschild Blvd, terrorizing more furniture and people as they go. In this shot we are given an overhead view of the dogs as they run, giving us an insight from their perspective as the pedestrians panic and scatter.

Finally the dogs come to a stop – they have reached their destination. They gather, and look up, seemingly into one of the apartments above.

They begin to snarl and bark as they lock eyes on their target – an empty apartment window.

And then a face emerges – a man, young, looks back down at the dogs. He looks worried, and also ready, as though he was expecting the dogs at any point. From this view he appears quite safe, very far up in his top floor apartment. The dogs cannot reach him here, but they are at his door, waiting. The camera slowly zooms in on his face, and we can see that he is visibly disturbed and frightened.

Finally, we are presented with the view from his perspective – 26 angry dogs looking up at him, surely ready to rip him to shreds if they had the chance. Although he is safe in his apartment, he is also a prisoner. He cannot leave, and instead is subject to remain there until the dogs leave, if they ever will.

We learn immediately afterwards that this opening is a dream sequence – It is the dream of Boaz Rein, a veteran of the First Lebanon War of 1982. It is 20 years after the war’s end, and now for the first time he has this dream. It is relating to an operation that he conducted during the war, where upon entering a village in Lebanon, he was instructed to shoot the dogs before they alert the residents. He shot 26 dogs that night, and these are the dogs that come to exact their revenge in his dream.

Waltz With Bashir is primarily a film about trauma, how we suppress it, and the many ways it may manifest, and what we do about it when it. PTSD is a condition that causes those who suffer from it to feel a perpetual sense of danger. A bang of a firework, or siren or horn of a car, can trigger vivid physiological reactions akin to those felt when one’s life is in danger. As such, nowhere can feel truly protected. This vision of the dogs invading the safety of the city, racing through residential streets and finding their target, is a powerful metaphor of the effect PTSD has on those who suffer from it. The danger is always felt; the dogs will always find their prey. Boaz sits alone in his apartment, relatively safe from the danger outside, but it is clear from this open sequence that he is not a truly free person – he is a prisoner, and the threat he feels is ever present in his life.