What will a Waltz with the headlines mean?

By Steven Zeitchik

With the war in Gaza intensifying, "Waltz with Bashir" is now the third fall movie to resonate eerily (after the Mumbai attacks did the same for "Slumdog Millionaire" and the passage of Prop 8 did that for "Milk").

Ari Folman's diary of his experiences during another Israeli war and another time of racial and military confusion doesn't need to be seen as reflecting on the current Middle East hostilities -- but it's hard not to consider your own positions on the contemporary fighting after seeing the film, no matter what side of the aisle you're on. And it's hard to view the film without your feelings about the current war playing into them.

These aren't the strained literary The-Dark-Knight-is-a-metaphor-for-post-9/11-America connections; these are concrete parallels between the film world and the real one.

The irony is that the last few years have brought a slew movies that were trying so desperately to say something about  current events -- "Lions for Lambs" comes to mind -- and most flopped.

At the time pundits explained their failure as the result of Americans wanting a break from reality. But it turns out that filmgoers aren't all about the escape -- they just don't want a lesson. This year's group, which were all intent on telling their own storiesand just happened to anticipate the headlines, are sailing along despite (because of?) the news.

"Slumdog," which shines an at times uncomfortable light on sectarian violence in India even as troops and passions again stir between Pakistan and India, has earned nearly $30 million by the close of the weekend. "Milk," released in a time of outrage over Prop 8, is fast approaching the $20 mil mark.

Will "Bashir" also ride the news wave? It's too early to tell thus far; the movie has earned $10,000 per-screen averages in two weeks of very limited release, but the real indication will come when it begins to widen. With the war in the Middle East not likely to go away anytime soon, its performance will be an almost test tube experiment for how a conflict playing out on the small-screen news affects a bigscreen take. (Of course critics are already on board -- the animated documentary was just named best film by the National Society of Films Critics, setting it up for an interesting underdog run at Oscar animated favorite "Wall-E.")

Either way, the parallels between all these films and the headlines are weird, almost spooky. About the only thing more spooky would be if Nixon came back from the grave to try to exonerate himself one more time. Or men started aging backwards.