In the scene from which Ari Folman’s spectacular docu-animation Waltz With Bashir takes its title, an Israeli gunman pirouettes balletically across a deserted Beirut street, firing endless rounds of bullets at rebel snipers in the apartment blocks above. Like the film as a whole, it is hypnotic yet disquieting, and compelling throughout.

The film centres on the director’s recollection of participating in the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in1982. More specifically, it explores his inability to recall what happened at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, where Israeli forces stood by as Christian Phalangists massacred thousands of Palestinian refugees.

A meeting with an old friend and fellow army conscript in their youth, who tells Folman of a recurring nightmare he has been having, prompts him to inspect his own recollections of the conflict. The friend describes a gang of 26 fierce, bloodthirsty dogs tearing through the streets of his town, before gathering beneath his window. He recognises them as the dogs who guarded Lebanese villages, barking in warning of approaching danger, and whom he executed as a soldier.

This encounter causes Folman to consider his own involvement in the war, and the realisation that he cannot remember anything about the massacres at Sabra and Shatila, despite being only a few hundred yards away when they took place. What follows is a trawl through his memory and psyche, as he asks himself, “What happened there? Why can’t I remember? Do I want to know what happened, and what it says about me?”

These questions lead to an examination into the authenticity of memory itself, of how it is informed and manipulated by external forces. Folman admits that his personal remembrances have been coloured by images from his parents’ experiences in Auschwitz, while cinematic references, such as the allusion to Apocalypse Now in the flashback of young Israeli soldiers frolicking on a beach, are indicative of the all pervasive influence of popular culture. The implication is that notions of truth, reality and objectivity are an impossibility when it comes to human memory.

This is also suggested near the end of the film in the much commented upon switch to actual camera footage of the aftermath of the massacres. Is it intended to portray the horrors of the atrocities in the starkest terms possible? Or does it represent the way that we increasingly view events through the lens of the media (a question even more pertinent now in this age of 24/7 news than at the time of the massacres)?

It is debatable whether the library news footage of corpse strewn refugee camps seem anymore real than Folman’s own animation, which lends itself perfectly to its subject. We follow the flights of his thoughts, and those of his friends and colleagues, across decades and continents, as he attempts to piece together the reality of his involvement in the massacres. Coupled with a powerful soundtrack by German composer Max Richter, the film possesses an epic sweep that would not have been possible if Folman had tried to make a straight-forward film with set, cast, budget etc to consider.

The film does not shirk from depicting the horrific events that took place in the refugee camp, but neither does it focus on them. Some will criticise the director for making a film that concentrates on the thoughts and feelings of those who allowed the atrocities to take place rather than the victims of the massacre. Indeed, those expecting a revealing expose of what took place at Shatila and Sabra will be disappointed.

However, this is not what Folman sets out to achieve. Instead, he has created a fascinating examination of the collective amnesia and abdication of responsibility that resulted from the atrocities, and an intriguing meditation on the nature of memory itself.

The film is set almost entirely in the prison’s notorious H-blocks where in 1981 IRA prisoners protested at Maggie Thatcher’s refusal to grant them political prisoner status by starting a dirty protest – refusing to wash or wear common prisoner clothing.

Detractors have accused McQueen of romanticising the IRA protestors, and in particular hunger striker Bobby Sands, who the film eventually focuses on.

I can only assume those critics have not actually seen Hunger. The film’s power lies in the fact that it strips the characters of their political context, and instead concentrates on the humanity of both prisoner and prison guard, and the human cost of the institutionalised brutality of the prison.

That is not to say that the film is lacking in context – the “Troubles” are alluded to in the opening credits, and the director skilfully weaves excerpts of media reports and recording of Thatcher to give a sense of the wider political background.

But it is the small details of the prisoners’ existences that have most impact – the cold austerity of the prison, the maggots scurrying around their beds, the shit that becomes engrained under their fingernails,

Most striking of all is the vulnerability of the prisoners, literally naked at the mercy of the (metaphorical) naked hatred of the prison guards.

This is made shockingly clear in a horrific scene where the prisoners are dragged out of their cells to be forcefully “washed”. On the way they are thrown at the feet of two lines of fully armed riot police, who kick and bludgeon the naked prisoners along the corridor before their near lifeless bodies are thrown into a bath and held under water until unconscious.

It is as distant from Hollywood, Bond-style violence as can be imagined, with every punch and blow felt by the audience. The immediate impact of this violence is evident in the prisoners’ mangled, broken bodies. But the film also explores the consequences of the violence for its perpetrators.

We see one prison warden’s attempts to lead a normal life, eating his breakfast and leaving his suburban home in the morning. The impossibility of such normality is quickly made clear, as he checks his car for bombs before departing. Our sympathies are aroused for this man with his bruised face and broken knuckles, until it is revealed how he got those bruises.

The implication is that normal life and normal society is an absurd, unfeasible idea when society is built upon oppression and violence. When the prison warden visits his comatose mother in a retirement home, the viewer is struck by the parallels between the two characters – both are physically alive, but dead inside.

Special praise must be reserved for actor Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, who famously fasted for 40 days to depict the gradual emaciation of the hunger striker’s body.

Fassbender succeeds in highlighting the human courage and determination of Sands in his final days, particularly in the intense and gripping 20 plus minute conversation with a priest, to whom he outlines his motives. Like the rest of the film, the scene is tense and utterly compelling. And as with the film as a whole, it is powerful and masterful, both shocking and moving in equal measure.