Benefit
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2002
- Messages
- 5,193
You must see this film. It's not getting the exposure it deserves, and it's a real shame.
War Dance
It's a 2007 documentary about a refugee camp in Northern Uganda that sends a contingent of school kids to Uganda's annual national music competition. The kids all have their sob stories; the civil war in Northern Uganda, which has been going on now for about 20 years, has orphaned one of them, forced another one into service as a child soldier, and seen another one's father murdered and her mother abducted and raped by rebels. The implicit understanding in these personal narratives is that virtually everyone in this camp, and other refugee camps like it, have experienced similar atrocities.
It's really something else to watch this 14 year old kid who in other scenes is shown with a crooked teenage smile or splashing in a lake with his friends, look directly into the camera and describe how he hacked a farmer to death with a hoe at gunpoint, or hear this 13 year old girl explain how she watched her mother's decapitated head be pulled out of a pot. This is very real. And it always gets marginalized in Western society where people are quick to dismiss it out of hand as the simple barbarism of the African continent, which they have become desensitized to or just never cared about in the first place for a variety of reasons.
What's great about this film, in addition to stunningly beautiful visual imagery that will make you think you're watching a Terrence Malick epic, is that it brings everything down to a very personal level with this music competition. The way the kids use music as an outlet, and the way it allows them to escape from the nightmarish landscape of their lives, is really touching.
Some critics have said it is too polished, that the stunning beauty of the images and the interviews that do seem slightly coached take away from the gravity of the subject matter. That is idiotic. See this movie. It might turn you into a bleeding heart like the rest of us who are going to Heaven.
War Dance
It's a 2007 documentary about a refugee camp in Northern Uganda that sends a contingent of school kids to Uganda's annual national music competition. The kids all have their sob stories; the civil war in Northern Uganda, which has been going on now for about 20 years, has orphaned one of them, forced another one into service as a child soldier, and seen another one's father murdered and her mother abducted and raped by rebels. The implicit understanding in these personal narratives is that virtually everyone in this camp, and other refugee camps like it, have experienced similar atrocities.
It's really something else to watch this 14 year old kid who in other scenes is shown with a crooked teenage smile or splashing in a lake with his friends, look directly into the camera and describe how he hacked a farmer to death with a hoe at gunpoint, or hear this 13 year old girl explain how she watched her mother's decapitated head be pulled out of a pot. This is very real. And it always gets marginalized in Western society where people are quick to dismiss it out of hand as the simple barbarism of the African continent, which they have become desensitized to or just never cared about in the first place for a variety of reasons.
What's great about this film, in addition to stunningly beautiful visual imagery that will make you think you're watching a Terrence Malick epic, is that it brings everything down to a very personal level with this music competition. The way the kids use music as an outlet, and the way it allows them to escape from the nightmarish landscape of their lives, is really touching.
Some critics have said it is too polished, that the stunning beauty of the images and the interviews that do seem slightly coached take away from the gravity of the subject matter. That is idiotic. See this movie. It might turn you into a bleeding heart like the rest of us who are going to Heaven.
