• The Congress

    As cut-throat a business as Hollywood may be, it’s inevitably a comedown from the horrible intensities of life in a warzone. The visually diverting but meandering The Congress is Ari Folman’s follow-up to 2009’s celebrated Waltz With Bashir, an animated documentary about former soldier Folman’s experiences during the 1982 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The Congress, inspired by Solaris author Stanislaw Lem’s 1971 science fiction novel The Futurological Congress, is an animated/live action blend which riffs on the movie industry’s superficial youth culture and delivers familiar dystopic warnings about society’s obsession with fantastical inoculations against the grim truths of real life. Robin Wright…