In this paper, I will analyze the encounter between animated sequences and live action sequences in movies such as Jean-François Laguionie’s The Painting (Le Tableau in original, 2011), Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir (2008) and David Alapont’s and Luis Briceño’s short film Blusher (Fard in original, 2011). Such an intermedial encounter has important implications at different levels. For example, by being presented in as a metalepsis in Le Tableau, it raises interesting questions about the creative process and about the relation between fiction and reality. In Waltz with Bashir, it is used as a way to represent a traumatic event from the past. In Fard, it shows the characters that their world vision is the result of an ideological and physiological indoctrination.

In all the films mentioned above, this encounter exploits the tension between iconic and indexical, between stylization and realism or between fiction and documentary. A closer look at these examples, with the help of Werner Wolf’s and Lars Elleström’s intermediality models, will allow me to study more in detail how this tensions are represented, as well as the narrative and thematical implications.