SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024

Johan Grimonprez’s documentary is one of the most unique, compelling, kinetic and insightful documentaries I have ever seen.  It is audacious in its scope and speed, assuming its audience can keep up with what is both a detailed micro description of events in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960 - but also a wider discourse on racism, decolonisation and political activism in America.

Basically, we have Patrice Lumumba desperately agitating for democracy and self-determination in the DRC at a time when African states were exploited by each side of the Cold War.  At a time pre-dating the full-blown US civil rights struggle, we already have black musicians in the USA agitating for change too. We get the provocative contrast of the State Department exploiting iconic musicians like Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie - sending them on goodwill tours of Africa - with Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crashing the UN Security Council in protest at Lumumba's murder. 

Why does the State Department give a shit? Because the DNC happens to sit on massive uranium reserves!  Amazingly, I had studied this period for A-Level history, complete with Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the desk at the UN. But I had never realised at which debate this was happening. Turns out, the Soviet premier was protesting the Cold War power grab in the DNC.

These strands and many more and interwoven into a dizzying, immersive and impressive film. It's a testament to its dynamic soundtrack and clarity of narrative construction that I never lost pace and could grasp its subtle arguments. Bravo to all involved.

SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT has a running time of 150 minutes.

DAHOMEY***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 4

French-Senagelese director Mati Diop's documentary DAHOMEY comes to the London Film Festival feted with the Berlin Golden Bear.  It's a relatively short film at around 70 minutes and alternates between spiritual fantasy and cold hard political debate. The resulting film is austere, provocative and urgent.

The movie opens in a French museum where pandemic-era masked curators are packing 26 artefacts originally looted from Benin by French colonists. Among them is "number 26" - the statue of a powerful nineteenth century king - who in an eery voiceover bristles that these men do not know his name.  We follow the camera inside the packing crates as lids are sealed shut and screws drilled in. We hear the engines of the airplane hum. And then we see the unboxing in Benin and the processional route of these artefacts to their new home.

As Mati Drop made clear in her post-film Q&A, it is ambiguous how far the cheering crowds and singing women are genuinely excited to see the return of these artefacts or whether this is a staged "Mise En Scene" courtesy of the President.  And this neatly brings us to the latter half of the film where we hear university students debate the meaning of the artefacts' return.

Should they be grateful that their President and France's President Macron did a deal? Or should they remain angry that only 26 out of 7000 artefacts have come back?  Should they see this as an historical occasion or a political act, designed to shore up the popularity of both presidents? In one of the most incisive comments we hear a young woman describe her frustration that the entire debate is being carried out in French, rather than Fon or any of the other native languages, because Beninese youth are only taught French in school.  Another young woman asks what resources will be made available so that the children in rural areas can come to the capital and see these artefacts, learn about their history and feel pride in it.

As the movie closes we are on the streets of the capital, with Diop's camera calmly moving among the street-sellers and bars, much as the movie opened hovering over trinket-sellers by the Eiffel Tower. The camera lingers on a poster advertising a skin-whitening cream - another legacy of learned and imbibed racism. And then we close the film but not the debate.

I found this to be deeply provocative and layered.  It spoke to what the return of these looted objects means to their home countries - and made me consider the role of our own great historical collections. And in all the editorials I have read about the return of the Benin Bronzes, this film is sadly unique in centring young African voices. 

DAHOMEY has a running time of 68 minutes. It won the Golden Bear at Berlin 2024. It goes on release in the USA and UK on October 25th.

THE WOMAN KING****

THE WOMAN KING is a curiously old-fashioned and satisfying action epic that brings to an untold (at least in the west) story of the Dahomey empire the same kind of sword and sandal grand sweep of films like GLADIATOR.  Director Gina

Prince Bythewood (THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES) proves to be an impressive helmer of large-scale battle sequences. Cinematographer Polly Morgan conjures up majestic landscapes and the visceral heat of the red-earthed soil.  And Terrence Blanchard gives us a score that both has orchestral majesty and the bone-stirring war-cries of native songs.  This is a film to stir us and impress us.  Just look at Viola Davis' newly jacked physique. She and her female warriors look every inch the part.  But this film also gives us real emotion and doesn't shy away from the terror of war, far beyond the typical machismo of male-led films.  When Davis' General Nansica relates how she was the victim of rape, we are with her in her trauma.  When her deputy Izogie (Lashana Lynch) and her newly trained warrior Nawe (Thuso Mbedu) are captured, we feel their peril.  Maybe this isn't such old-fashioned film-making after all.

The only thing that lets this film down is its rather wooden dialogue from screenwriters Dana Stevens and Maria Bello, and a rather thinly drawn set of antagonists in John Boyega's King and his wife. What the film posits is a callow king who is torn between taking the riches of slavery (his wife's advice) and standing up to the neighbouring Oyo tribe and diverting his own economy toward palm oil production (Nansica's advice).  Sadly the King does little but look aggrieved and his wife is a caricature rich spoiled woman.  The film could've done more to show her motivations, given that her position is actually the one that the Dahomey empire took.

THE WOMAN KING is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 135 minutes.

I AM SAMUEL - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 4

I AM SAMUEL is a brave and moving documentary about one young man's struggle to be accepted as an out homosexual in contemporary Kenya. It's a country I know well and it is indeed a strange mixture of the prudishness and legal oppression of the British Victorian colonial system overlaid with the feverish condemnation of an intense evangelical Christian contemporary religious culture.  As a result, homosexuality might not be illegal, but gay sex, and to be gay is to be punished by brutal beatings and shunning.  Over a period of years following this brave family we see Samuel struggling to explain his love for his boyfriend Alex to his family, who would rather live in denial. One of Samuel's friends is beaten up just for being associated with him.  People whisper about the true nature of Samuel's friendship with Alex.  Along the way we see the community of gay friends that he has had to take shelter in, and hear their own experiences of having to come out and face family and community shunning. The wonderful thing is that by the time we get to the end of this film, Alex' name is added to family prayers and Samuel's father has come to an uneasy acceptance.  But we are painfully aware that this is the exception to the rule, and of the difficult path that Samuel and Alex and now Samuel's whole family, will face.  

To me, this is the best of what documentaries can do: they take you into a world you do not know and make you empathise with a situation that is not your own. At the same time, my showing an extreme situation, they make you reflect on the difficulties that might be faced by your gay friends in your own, supposedly liberal, society.  Given the situation in parts of the USA today, how different would it really be to Samuel's predicament?

I AM SAMUEL played HotDocs 2020 and is currently playing the BFI London Film Festival. It has a running time of 70 minutes.

FAREWELL AMOR - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 3

FAREWELL AMOR is a quiet but brutal emotional drama about an immigrant family reunited after decades of separation. It resonated powerfully with me because it mirrors the story of my own grandparents and asked questions I have longed to ask.  As the film opens we meet Walter, an Angolan refugee who has established a life for himself in Brooklyn over the last 17 years, including a relationship with a woman.  He has to end that relationship when his wife Esther, and now fully grown daughter Sylvia, finally get their immigration status approved and arrive in New York to live with him.  What follows is a painful observation of an estranged couple.  Walter is utterly alienated from a newly religious Esther who seems to want to cling more to her old life and its values than embrace the new.  Sylvia is struggling with the weight of her mother's expectations and resentment that her father left her behind.  Dance is used as a motif.  Walter remembers when his wife was young and carefree and danced.  In one of the most finely observed exchanges in the movie he tells his daughter that as a black man he spends his life holding himself in and presenting himself in a way that won't scare white people. He encourages Sylvia to dance freely and true to her own style because dance is one of the very places that one can be oneself. I'm not sure if I bought into the final act of the film - and its resolution - but I very much enjoyed the journey and getting to know these three characters.

FAREWELL AMOR has a running time of 95 minutes. The film played Sundance and London 2020. It does not yet have a commercial release date.

WALKING WITH SHADOWS - BFI London Film Festival 2019

WALKING WITH SHADOWS is a fascinating film set in contemporary Nigeria about what happens when an apparently happily married man is outed as gay. The man in question is Ebele/Adrian (Ozzy Agu). He realised he was gay and had an affair as a younger man but also realised he risked losing his family and status if he pursued it. So he gets married and has kids, and suppresses his feelings until his wife receives an anonymous phone call.  It's interesting seeing how Adrian copes, but I was far more interested in his wife Ada's reaction. Perhaps in England one's first reaction wouldn't be to get an HIV test, but apparently that seems a credible threat in Nigeria. In the most fascinating scene of all, the wife is invited to lunch with a group of polished and poised women. At first we wonder if she's going to be mocked and excoriated because of the gossip circling the town. But no, it turns out they're all married to gay men, and have come to terms with being so, because at least they are still financially supported. The resulting film is moving, relatively well acted and shot but most of all of interest as a social portrait of queer acceptance, or lack thereof in Nigeria. 

WALKING WITH SHADOWS has a running time of 90 minutes. It does not yet have a commercial release date.

COLD CASE HAMMARSKJÖLD - BFI London Film Festival 2019

Mads Brugger wants to have his cake and eat it.  He wants to put forth a seriously argued documentary thriller in which he uncovers a sinister white supremacist plot to assassinate the second UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, because he was aiding African independence and thus a threat to white mining interests.  More than that, Brugger claims that the same shady, maybe CIA-funded, militia was behind an even more horrific plot to deliberately infect black South Africans with HIV, all in the guise of vaccinations. To make his case, Brugger uncovers black witnesses of the original plane crash who claim they saw a mid-air explosion - witnesses who claim a Belgian-British mercenary took credit for the assassination - and documents released during South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission that apparently show the self-same plot to kill Dag Hammarskjold, and to infect black South Africans.  

Some of this is persuasive. We know enough about the American and British intelligence agencies, not to mention white African militia, to believe they might pull something like an assassination off.  But following this film's premiere at Sundance, the claims of an infection plot have been thoroughly debunked. Apparently it's incredibly hard to isolate and weaponise the HIV virus with the kind of facilities they would've had at the time. 

Even worse, the director destroys his credibility by making himself the subject of the doc - very much in the style of Nick Broomfield or Michael Moore - but even more goofy.  Maybe he's trying to make some deep meta point about colonialism by wearing a white pith helmet while digging up the crash site.  Maybe he's making a deep meta point by using inadequate tools and transparently staging the whole thing.  Indeed, the entire doc has a framing device of a white man (him) dictating to seemingly interchangeable African secretaries. If the point is to make a darkly funny joke about exploitative colonialism, then fine.

But you can't do that and simultaneously want to be taken seriously with your claims of plots.  And if you don't want to be taken seriously - but are just doing this all for laughs, then aren't you exploiting the death of Dag Hammarksjold for entertainment purposes?  I have to say that since watching this film I've done some research on this incredibly impressive man, and I can't help but thinking that his death was shady, and that he deserved a far better, and more serious, investigative documentary than this. 

COLD CASE HAMMARSKJOLD has a running time of 128 minutes.  The film played Sundance 2019 and was released in the USA in August.  It is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2019 in the documentary competition but both screenings are sold out. 

MY FRIEND FELA - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Create Strand

MY FRIEND FELA is another documentary about the iconic African musician and political activist - Fela Kuti.  It's much more insightful and even-handed than Alex Gibney's treatment a few years ago.  Cuban director Joel Zito Araujo's first feat is just to get into Nigeria, despite the continued political nervousness at Fela's criticism of politicians.  His second feat is to get access to musicians and lovers, and also to one of Fela's sons - although not Femi who seems to be the one who has most clearly continued his music and political legacy. The resulting documentary is concise, well-constructed and surprisingly even-handed account of the man.  He explores his childhood with a feminist political mother and the evident talent that got him into a classical music education in London.    At one point a musician explains Fela's technical mastery of the pentatonic scale and tries to explain why his music is so powerful.  The documentary then explores Fela's political education with the Black Panthers, and the resulting change in his look and music and message to weave his authentic Africa heritage into the jazz funk and classical music he was familiar with.  We see Fela become a harsh critic of the corrupt ruling Nigerian government and the horrific violent reprisals that brought him - resulting in the vicious rape of his wives and death of his beloved mother.

This is where it gets tricky of course - Fela's wives. How do we reconcile the activist who was so eloquent on the cause of pan-africanism and anti-corruption and proclaims himself the product of a feminist upbringing with the man who also claims polygamy is part of his heritage and seems to treat women as so many interchangeable harem members?  I love how balanced the film is. It doesn't trash Fela's reputation but it carefully shows us testimony from women who felt exploited and even footage of his dominance of the dance floor seemingly dragging a woman to dance by her head.  It's rightly provocative and makes you question how far we're able to overlook everyday sexism when someone is also being heroic in another manner.  

The other thing I would say is even if you're not a massive fan of Fela's music - and if not why not?! - this film makes for a really interesting exploration of the black power struggle - and puts the American story of radicalisation in its wider global context. It makes for insightful social history. 

MY FRIEND FELA has a running time of 94 minutes. It played Rotterdam 2019 and also one the Paul Robeson Award for Best Film at FESPACO. There are still tickets available for two of the three screenings at this year's BFI London Film Festival here. 

DREAMAWAY - BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Preview

DREAMAWAY is a document that I really liked at first, but which outstayed its welcome.  What I loved was seeing behind and beyond a news story.  As a Brit, I was painfully aware of the terrorist attack on Sharm El Sheikh that led the UK government to ban direct flights to the resort. But other than knowing in some vague way that I can't safely travel to Egypt, I didn't give it another thought.  But this documentary focuses our attention on what happens to a tourist resort when one of its biggest markets is cut off. We are introduced to a cleaner, a DJ, a resort activity person, a guy who dresses up and poses with tourists - and see what their lives are when those tourists go away. And bear in mind that these are the lucky people - their hotel hasn't been shut down, as many other hotels, cafes and restaurants and bars have been.  They may be on half wages but they still have jobs.

The result is a melancholy and surreal film in which we see employees move into deserted hotel rooms - a cleaner with such a small amount of rooms to clean that she lies down in one and watches TV - a group of resort entertainers doing a aqua gym routine with no-one in the pool to join in - a DJ playing music to a deserted dancefloor. It's a very tangible picture of economic depression that reminded me a bit of footage of ghost towns in Florida and China after the financial crisis. Pristine new buildings with no-one to enjoy them is a very sad and pitiful thing. And the lives are sad and pitiable to - whether financially or emotionally - as the young girls complain about the lack of other girls to hang out with because the sacked workers have all gone home. 

Where I found the documentary lost me was in the more fanciful moments where the main characters speak to camera and then follow up a - I kid you not - inflatable giant black monkey on the back of a moving truck that seems to dole out life advice. I could've done without this and perhaps have done with more context or contrast.  I read somewhere that the film-makers had originally planned to do a compare and contrast between Sharm and Cairo and I would have preferred that.

DREAMAWAY has a running time of 86 minutes. There are still tickets available for one of two screenings at this year's BFI London Film Festival, where it is screening in the Documentary competition. The film does not yet have a commercial release date.

BLACK PANTHER

BLACK PANTHER comes to our screens freighted with the self-appointed weight of political history. It's as if action movies starring Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Wesley Snipes never happened. It's as if nuanced black action heroes like Lando Calrissian never happened.  This, we are told, is a watershed moment where a major franchise blockbuster not only stars a single male action hero, but a whole cast full of amazing black male and female talent.  I can't but agree - there's a qualitative leap when you have an entire film full of black actors, with African accents, with most of the action set in Africa.  This is all to the good, and it's great to see black representation go to that next stage, but I can't help but feel that that tide of goodwill toward the film - goodwill that I too shared - has clouded critical attitudes toward it.  I am hugely excited that such a project has come to our screens, but I think it would be patronising not to review it critically.  I sense in a lot of the excitement in the tweets since its preview screenings began, at best conflation between excitement that the project exists vs its content - and at worst virtue signalling.  Because let's be clear, this is an entirely disposable occasionally very funny, but often rather dull and overly complicated film.  And its titular character, as portrayed by Chadwick Boseman (GET ON UP), is the least interesting thing about it.

The story has so many strands it's hard to know where to begin.  We have a thinly veiled version of Rwanda blessed with a rare metal called Vibranium which gives their king, Black Panther, extra-ordinary power, and the country futuristic technology.  The film takes from this premise the following concern:  

1) Should this tech be hidden to prevent its exploitation by others;

2) Shared with the world for good;

3) Or be used to get revenge and achieve domination over the rest of the world? 

Broadly speaking, Black Panther starts off believing the first, and this story is his coming of age story, a classical Greek tale of a son learning to confront his father's assumptions and become his own man.  His wariness is made credible by the existence of a nasty white South African thief called Ulysses Klaue, who's being chased down by a CIA agent called Everett Ross.   By contrast, and despite seeing all this, Black Panther's little sister Shuri, who is a tech genius, believes the tech should be shared, tradition thrown off, and modernity embraced.  Finally, Black Panther and Shuri have a cousin called Erik Killmonger, who as his name suggest with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, is angry at being rejected by his family, the death of his father, and wants to overthrow Black Panther and use the Vibranium for evil.

Where the film works well is in its opening 45 minutes.  The prologue nicely sets up some of the mythology and origins of the Black Panther/T'Challa, and the emotional ties between father, uncle and son as well as the Panther and his love interest. The action is fast paced, we are introduced to the the man we think is the antagonist, and also the character who truly turns out to be the real threat.  And we get the surprise of two of the least well known members of the cast - Letitia Wright and Dalai Gurira - being by far the most charismatic and funny.  The problem is that after that we get a middle section that is extremely bogged down in all the intricacies of the cumbersome plot. And a final section that is your typical Marvel action set-piece with bad CGI.  Someone in the screening I attended, who evidently loved the film, shouted "Rewind!" as the credits rolled, and I just wanted to shout back "Edit!"  There's a decent 100 minute action movie struggling inside this over-blown 134 minute running time.

The problems for the film are worse than just a baggy script though. Chadwick Boseman is a charisma-less lead. Perhaps the most charisma-less lead since Henry Cavill's Superman.  And he plays the role not just with a South African accent, but with an almost pastiche version of a Nelson Mandela impression.  His entire acting range seems to be to bite his lip, and look concerned. He's acted off the screen by Daniel Kaluuya (GET OUT) as W'Kabi, his fellow Wakandan, not to mention Michael B Jordan (CREED) as his troubled cousin Killmonger.  And that's before we even get to the women. Lupita N'yongo is anonymous as the love interest - an early attempt to rescue Boko Haram kidnapped women makes you think she's gonna be feisty, but no, she really is just there to look adoring and be supportive. And so she in turn is acted off the screen by Letitia Wright's smart, irreverent Shuri, and by the Black Panther's General Okoye (Danai Gurira). And to be honest - and I'm not gonna be popular for saying this, the entire bunch of them are outclassed by Andy Serkis cameo as the evil Klaue, and he seemed to be having far more fun on screen than I did in the cinema. 

The tragedy of this film is that having waited so long for a black-led ensemble action movie the result is so anodyne. Take a Bond-like villain here, a character that's like Q, your typical Marvel action scenes and tech, an indifferent score and special effects.... And then for no reason at all, chuck in a cataphract rhino and a cliche of tribal strife. The result is a film that isn't half as good as BLADE and middling by the standards of the MCU.

BLACK PANTHER has a running time of 134 minutes and is rated 12A for moderate violence, injury detail and a rude gesture. It goes on global release on Wednesday 14th February. 

TROPHY

TROPHY is a meticulously edited, beautifully shot, and most of all provocative documentary about the ethics of big game hunting and its interaction with rare species conservation.  Its directors - Christina Clusiau and Shaul Shwarz (AIDA'S SECRETS) - are on the record as saying that they began making the doc to pretty much indict the commercial hunting industry, and there's certainly plenty of explicit, unpalatable and indeed disgusting footage of rich white men paying large sums of money to shoot (NOT track and hunt) game at point blank range and then take crass selfies.  One of them even cites the Bible as sanctioning such savage activity, which will be like a red rag to a bull to any liberals watching.  But the film is careful to balance this with the equally dogmatic and arguably naive opposing views of anti-hunting activists who quite earnestly and rightly want to save lions like Cecil, but have no concept of the complexity of policy making and unintended consequences in Africa.  There is no possibility of a utopian solution - compromises and second best options are the only viable way forward.  

This film poses just such a compromise, which is to allow limited commercial hunting as well as the sale of rhino horns, and to use those funds to subsidise anti-poaching and breeding measures. The people used to defend such a policy are of varying credibility. The most prominent in the film is a commercial rhino breeder who does seem to care about saving them from extinction and his sunk his personal wealth into doing so but stands to make a fortune from trading in their horns.  But the one who really impressed me was an anti-poaching activist who also leads commercial hunts.  He seemed to be the most articulate about the irony of killing some animals to save others - the most aware of the complexity of the situation - and the most deeply committed to their long-term survival.  His views really impressed me, and made me deeply reconsider my views on this issue, which is the most one could ask of any documentary.  In addition, I delighted in the beautiful cinematography of South Africa and Zimbabwe, while simultaneously being horrified by, and rightly not being allowed to avoid, the sight of animals being killed for sport.

TROPHY has a running time of 105 minutes and is rated 15 for strong language. The film played Sundance and SXSW 2017.  It opened earlier this year in the USA and Canada. It opened in the UK and Ireland a week ago and is still showing in cinemas and on demand. 

A UNITED KINGDOM - BFI LFF 2016 - Opening Night Gala - Day One

It's London, 1947.  The black King of an impoverished African country falls in love with a white working class girl and against opposition for his Uncle, the Regent, marries her.  They think their battle will be to win acceptance from his tribe, to be ruled by a white woman.  But in fact the greater battle is against the impersonal forces of Cold War foreign policy.  For the country is a British protectorate. And Britain is bankrupt and fearful of Stalin.  She needs Apartheid South Africa's uranium and gold, and so chooses to overlook her hateful racial policies, and her objections to a mixed marriage in a country on her border.  And so this poor star-crossed couple must fight not only the more petty everyday racism, but a larger, political racism, separation and exile, in order to finally stake a claim not only for love, but for independence.

This is a quite astonishing true story, and it's testament to British director Amma Asante's film that I want to learn even more about it. How is it that modern day Botswana (then Bechuanaland) somehow managed to chart a course of relatively stable democracy and affluence, eschewing its destiny to be a political pawn between Britain, Russia and South Africa?  I also wanted to learn more about the fascinating couple at the centre of the story - particularly the wife, Ruth.  How does a working class girl from London have the courage to go to a strange country and apparently, per the end credits, become a fierce political campaigner and advocate for AIDS victims? Actress Rosamund Pike hinted in a red carpet interview that Ruth's experience in World War Two was liberating and defining and I'd love to know more about that.

BFI LFF 2016 Preview - TICKLING GIANTS

TICKLING GIANTS is a funny/serious documentary about the business of satirising corrupt politicians.  In this case, it's the story of the charismatic Egyptian heart surgeon, Basseem Youssef, who started making youtube videos satirising the old dictatorial regime of Hosni Mubarak.  Before he new it, viewer numbers were through the charts and he had a prime time show called The Show, in the manner of Jon Stewart's Daily Show.  The two hosts are clearly sympathetic and inspirational to each other, and they have appeared on each other's programmes.  But things took a darker turn after the Arab Spring.   The people may have put Morsi in power but soon it was his military commander Sisi who had staged a coup and ushered in an even more repressive government than that of Mubarak.  Suddenly Basseem Youssef is being summoned for arrest, his show is threatened with being taken off air, and becomes the top news story.  He jumps to another channel, but Sisi's regime jam the signal when he refuses to tone down his criticism. Youssef worries about his family and employees and questions if keeping the show on air is worth the candle. 

BEASTS OF NO NATION - BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Day Two

A podcast review of this film can be found here, or you can subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

BEASTS OF NO NATION is a beautifully photographed searing drama set in a fictional African country beset by civil war. The protagonist is a young boy called Agu (unknown Abraham Attah) whose village is caught up in a violent civil war. Separated from his mother, he watches his father and brother gunned down by government troops and flees into the bush, only to be picked up by Idris Elba’s warlord “Commandant”. Agu is groomed, drugged, indoctrinated and sexually abused abut never becomes a hardened soldier. We know this because BEASTS OF NO NATION is one of the rare movies where a voice-over is needed and desperately sympathetic. Raised in a deeply Christian family, Agu questions every act of violence, and wonders whether God sees and judges. He lifts up and carries his friend and fellow child soldier Striker when he’s shot down. And with a clarity that belies his years, he realises that the even if the war were to end, he will not be able to become a child again. Indeed, he even pities the adults who try to get through to him. They think he is too shell-shocked to speak but really he wants to protect them and himself from the brutal memories.

WARRIORS

Cricket likes to think of itself as more than a sport.  There's something called The Spirit of Cricket which is about a spirit of fairness and respect for all involved in the game - your opponents, your team, and the community in which you play.  It's a sport that brings together people around the world from backyard and beach matches to club cricketers to Test Matches at the apex of the game.  And over time, it is not too melodramatic to say that it has helped bring together and heal communities.  One of the most eloquent expressions of this is Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakarra's MCC Spirit of Cricket lecture in which he tells how cricket unified a country riven by civil war.

But cricket can have a positive influence far beyond the Test playing nations, and in his new documentary, director Barney Douglas shows how cricket is helping to change lives and attitudes among the Maasai community in Kenya.  What's more impressive is that this deeply moving story is told with wit, passion and some of the most stunning cinematography seen in a sports documentary (not to mention a superb sound-track). It's a movie with an important message, but it never feels ponderous or hectoring.  The message is elegantly woven into a classic underdog story that leaves a lasting impression.

PLOT FOR PEACE

If MANDELA: THE LONG WALK TO FREEDOM peeled back some of the myth surrounding Nelson Mandela's prison release, adding an edge of cynicism to the narrative fashioned by our better selves, then PLOT FOR PEACE is a comprehensive debunking.  Before both films I had the naive impression that international boycotts and the ANCs terrorism forced the deeply religious FW DeKlerk to free Mandela unconditionally and that the famous scene we saw on television was truly Madiba's first step outside of a prison in decades.  LONG WALK TO FREEDOM told us that in reality Mandela had been negotiating with the Apartheid government and living in a comfortable mansion, if still imprisoned, for some time before his release, but essentially sticks to the narrative of two rather idealistic men decided to make change positive rather than let South Africa crumble into violence.  Ultimately, it left Mandela's destiny in his own hands, and that of DeKlerk. All this is a charming bedtime story - the triumph of good over evil - the age of the hero, and both men rightfully received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts.

What we learn from PLOT FOR PEACE is that sometimes great change happens not because a benevolent heroic leader takes destiny into his own hands, but because self-interested men, utterly unaccountable to anyone, hidden in the shadows of history, are found in the right place at the right time.  These men aren't the stuff of glossy Hollywood biopics that tug at the heartstrings and make big grand speeches. They are men of compromised actions and motives who nonetheless govern great events.  Jean-Yves Olliver, aka Monsieur Jacques, the subject of this new documentary, is just such a man.

At first glance, Jean-Yves is exactly the kind of man that earnest liberal people would hate.  He's a greedy capitalist bastard who made a fortune trading commodities and defying sanctions against places like South Africa.  He's almost a cartoon villain - a short French-Algerian Gordon Gekko - chomping on cigarettes and laying out his playing cards and changing world history without a care for democratic accountability.  But something in his background made him the perfect actor for south African peace.  A childhood in Algeria during the civil war powerfully taught him that a white minority cannot control a native majority forever, and that if unprepared, the end of the regime can be deeply traumatic and violent. With that in mind, he wanted to broker an end to apartheid that was more peaceful than the Algerian civil war, but to do so, he had to essentially broker peace in the entire region.

Why? Because, as this documentary so concisely and clearly explains, this was the height of the Cold War - with the neighbouring state Angola torn apart by civil war - the government backed by Castro, and the rebels backed by South Africa and the USA.  While South Africa was embroiled in a foreign war she would not focus on domestic peace.  And so began a period of intense shuttle diplomacy in the 1980s, often at Jean-Yves' own expense. He would charter planes and pay court to the regional leaders, dealing with officials from Cuba and the USA, trying to win their trust, establish his own credibility, and come to some kind of mutually beneficial agreement.  The result was a massive prisoner exchange in 1987; the withdrawal of both US, South African and Cuban troops from Angola in the Brazzaville Protocol of 1988; the independence of Namibia; and finally the intense negotiations with Pik Botha and the African regional leaders to bring apartheid to a close. These talks fatally undermined PW Botha - the prime minister - ushering in FW DeKlerk who then could negotiate with Mandela. Thus Monsieur Jacques set the dominoes in motion that ended apartheid.

PLOT FOR PEACE tells this story with energy, excitement and occasional flashes of great humour.  It's a tale full of rogues and villains - colourful characters with great power and greater egos - negotiations that can be undercut by capriciousness - but that can succeed when great men realise their place in history is at stake.  I was shocked at how pivotal Jean-Yves Ollivier was to ending apartheid and indeed civil war in the region and surprised at his total honesty as to his own motives - indeed the candour off all the interviewees. And boy, what access! We hear from everyone from Pik Botha to Winnie Mandela to the Cuban and US policymakers.  Kudos to the film-makers for putting it all together.

PLOT FOR PEACE opened in Spain and France last year and opens in the UK on March 24t on demand on DVD.  It has a running time of 83 minutes and is rated 12A in the UK. 

MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM is a film in that long tradition of sepia toned Hollywood hagiography that fully subscribes to the Great Man theory of history.  It is a simple film that tells a powerful story and contains a truly exceptional central performance.  But it is mortally wounded by  bad make-up and intellectual timidity.

So, I guess we all know the story.  Nelson Mandela is a lawyer in apartheid South Africa - an advocate for the repressed in white courts.  At first reluctant, he becomes a leader in the African National Congress - a banned political party campaigning for equal rights.  When the struggle goes nowhere, they turn to violence and Mandela goes underground.  When a sabotage mission goes wrong he's caught, tries to become a martyr, but is instead imprisoned for life on Robben Island. There he stayed for decades as international pressure increased, the ANC's violence increased, and F W DeKlerk realised he would have to negotiate.  All this led us to that iconic image of Mandela walking free, hand-in-hand with his long-supportive wife Winnie. The crucial final act, is seeing the man who could so easily seek vengeance, pleading for what would become "truth and reconciliation".

The problem with this film is that while it tries to make us see the nasty side of Mandela - his serial womanising - it doesn't want to go too far in damaging the legend. Similarly, it treats Winnie Mandela - a fascinating figure - with respect and sympathy - which is right - but arguably goes too far.  We see her brutalised and radicalised - but we don't see enough of the ANC campaign of violence that so alienated her from Nelson. Indeed, I wanted much more of Winnie, not least because while Idris Elba's acting was just fine as Nelson, Naomie Harris absolutely mastered the accent and growing hardness of Winnie.  It is absurd to me that Elba is getting award nominations while Harris is unrecognised. Of course, at a much more superficial level, the real problem of this film is that Elba looks nothing like Mandela.  That doesn't matter of itself. I saw Mark Rylance play Cleopatra and his acting was mesmerising.  And maybe if they'd been less heavyhanded with the make-up and just let Elba act Nelson rather than trying to make him look like Nelson, it would've been less distracting. As it is, the make-up is utterly unsuccessful and utterly distracting.

So, overall, a rather disappointing film, worth watching only for Naomie Harris, and to see just how far Mandela's conditions eased in the final years of his captivity. There is no real depiction of the horror of living in a small cell for decades.  No searing indictment of that captivity in the manner of Steve McQueen's HUNGER. And no real desire to stir up the pot of controversy surrounding the ANC's tactics, as embodied in Winnie.  It's a picture book movie of fortuitous timing and poor make-up.  Mandela deserves better. 

MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM played Toronto 2013 and opened last year in South Africa, the USA, Iceland, Portugal, Belgium, France, Israel, the Netherlands, Canada and Kuwait. It opened earlier this year in the UK and Ireland. It opens in Spain on January 17th; in Denmark on January 23rd; in India on January 24th; in Germany and New Zealand on January 30th; in Australia on February 6th; in Sweden on February 7th; in Finland on February 14th; and Singapore on February 27th. 

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS - LFF 2013 Day One

Tom Hanks as the freighter captain boarded by Somali pirates.

You can listen to a podcast review of the movie below:

The word to describe the new Tom Hanks-Paul Greengrass true-life thriller CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is "tense".  You get about five minutes of mildly tense chat between a lovely decent husband (Hanks) and wife (Catherine Keener) and then we see him land in Oman to pilot a commercial freighter through perilous Somali waters to the Kenyan coast.  We then get about an hour of petrifying highly tense terror as a band of Somali pirates tries and tries again to board the gigantic freighter, and then another hour of killer tension as the US navy try to save our erstwhile hero, who's now been forced into a large lifeboat with the pirates - the key question, can the Navy Seals end the attack without also killing Phillips as collateral damage? 

There's no comic relief.  No five minute pause for reflection.  No calm waters.  Even if you know how this true-life story works out, I guarantee that Paul Greengrass' handheld up-close filming style will keep you on the edge of your seat.  And when you finally get that moment of catharsis - perhaps the finest ten minutes of acting in Tom Hanks' career - the emotion is overwhelming. 

Is the film perfect? No.  The opening dialogue between husband and wife is hamfisted - so blatantly shoehorning a discussion about tough times in post financial crisis America.  The dialogue on the ship in the opening scenes is also a bit "Basil Exposition", as the crewmates try to take us in babysteps through how a ship like this works.  At one point, if I recall rightly, Tom Hanks even says "walk me through the plan".  But one the film settles into the stride it hits an even-handed complexity and nuance that is truly admirable.  The chief pirate, Muse (Barkhad Abdi) is painted as an intelligent man with few options, boxed into a corner and never likely to benefit from the money he's making - something Phillips calls him out on.  And a particularly touching relationship forms between Phillips and the younger, shoeless pirate. 

Overall, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is just what you'd expect given the talent attached to it.  Classy, intelligent, brilliantly directed, superbly acted, and deeply immersive.  And a special shout out to cinematographer Barry Ackroyd who takes us to the heart of the action. 

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS has a running time of 134 minutes.

CAPTAIN PHILIPS will be released on October 11th in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Peru, Portugal, Russia, the UAE, Finland, Iceland, Jamaica, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the USA. It opens on October 18th in France, Brazil, Ecuador, Ireland, Mexico and the UK. It opens on October 25th in the Philippines, Argentina, Denmark and Colombia. It opens on October 31st in Chile and Italy; on November 7th in Switzerland and Italy; on November 10th in Taiwan; on November 15th in Bulgaria and Uruguay; on November 20th in Belgium, the Dominican Republic, the Netherlands and Turkey; on November 29th in Japan and on December 5th in Singapore. 

London Film Fest 2012 Day 10 - SLEEPER'S WAKE

Everything wrong with South African thriller SLEEPER'S WAKE can be summed up in the word "baboon".  It's the kind of movie that has a half decent idea at its centre and some decent enough performances, but as two crucial junctures, mishandles the tone so that we laugh at it and the tension is broken.  As a result, despite its good intentions and genuine sense of unease and menace in its first hour, it has to be judged a failure.  

The  movie is brought to us as the debut feature of writer-director Barry Berk.  The protagonist, Lionel (John Wraith), is a grieving middle-aged widower mourning in a deserted "cabin in the woods". As is the way with this genre of film he meets an eery family - religious domineering father, sexually precocious daughter and disengaged son.  Int the first hour of the film, Lionel is repeatedly put in  a position where a woman is making him uncomfortable and his genuine gestures of goodwill lead to sinister results.  So far so good. The problem is that as the tension ratchets up the movie enters its final half hour, it tries to go Straw Dogs but ends up in a place of absurdity, from which it cannot recover. 

SLEEPER'S WAKE played Toronto and London 2012.

London Film Fest 2012 - Top Picks - TALL AS THE BAOBOB TREE

At first glance, our two first Top Picks for London 2012 seem worlds apart.  THE HUNT is set in the affluent liberal Nordics, whereas today's pick, TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE, is set in rural Senegal.  But both employ a very distinct technique to bring the viewer right into the heart of the story - both create a sense of intimacy and of moral urgency - both focus on the agency and vulnerability of children within a community - and both are exquisitely shot.

TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE is not a dogme film, but it is definitely a "found" art.  Debut feature director Jeremy Teicher has assembled his story and his cast from a documentary project in Senegal, and the resulting feature film has an authenticity and intimacy that is captivating.  He casts real-life sisters Dior and Oumoul Kâ as fictional sisters Coumba and Debo.  The first generation to be sent to school in their village, this small step to emancipation and education is threatened when their father must pay his son's medical bills, and so pulls the younger sister from school in order to arrange her marriage.  The elder sister tries to prevent this backward step by taking employment in the city.  

What I love about this film is the complete lack of cultural arrogance or simple moralising.  The decision to take the girl out of school and arrange her marriage is not seen as a bigoted outrageous step, but as part of the rich tradition of the village.  We understand that the father is genuinely trying to do what is best for his family: it's just that the next generation has had a taste of a different life and will try anything to retain that opportunity.  Indeed the over-riding theme is one of the impossibility of communication.  When the elder sister tries to explain the situation to her teacher, he rather facilely tells her to explain to her father why he should alter his views - as if such a simple thing is possible!  Every decision in this film is fraught and enmeshed in the conflict between traditional familial duty and modernity.  And if it seems rather far away from contemporary London, I can only say that this is exactly the same  kind of conversation that I have experienced in contemporary British-Asian society.

But I should stop there. I don't want to give you the impression that TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE is an earnest, preachy, but rather dry film.  Rather, it is absolutely captivating and emotionally involving. The cast transmit their intimacy and everyday triumphs and setbacks against a backdrop of stunning Senagalese landscapes.  There are as many moments of joy as of conflict, and the film is worth watching for DP Chris Collis' HD lensing alone.

TALL AS THE BAOBAB TREE aka GRAND COMME LE BAOBAB played London 2012.  It does not yet have a commercial release date.

Running time 82 minutes. Language: Pulaar.