Excellent Film

Rating: 7/10 (12 August 2005)

I really wish people would stop gushing about how GREAT this film is, how it made you CRY, MOAN, WEAP, GENUFLECT, etc. YES, I agree that the film is brilliant. It GETS one's attention. IT is a story powerfully told. Unfortunately, it also inspires a general sense (to my mind, and after reading some of the posts here) of armchair philanthropy. Stasis. Inactivity. It is great that there is a film that takes Africa and individualized Africans figures, seriously as its primary Subject, tells the story from an African point of view. This is the first mainstream film (to my mind, that has done this). Africa, as a concept, is most often seen as a massive, dirty, backwards "Heart of Darkness", unexplored unless by prying, objectifying news cameras (starving children with snot running out of their noses etc.) The fault doesn't lie with the film (it is quite firm about its contempt for the "West's" strategic lack of agency). The problem lies with people like YOU, quite happy to sing the film praises, but not much else. There is a post further down that (flippantly) refers to this film as "This year's Schindler's List". What a cheek! Yes, this may be one of those "never forget what happened film's", but while the Holocaust recedes ever further into history, atrocities of similar proportions still happen on this continent (I am a South-African). The speed and force with which the "Rwanda" happened forced the West (retrospectively) to sit up and listen. Although slower, other protracted battles/hotspots(a misnomer no doubt coined by that beast CNN) continue to shock the mind out of comprehension. Angola, for example only recently (three years ago) ended an over twenty year civil war (see, in Africa its "on again: and "off again: so no-one really knows how long these things last and whether or not they ever truly end, case in point: Sudan. The list goes on. To list "issues", rant-style, here would be counter-intuitive, to my mind. Go find out.
Hopefully there will be more films about African SUBJECTS in the future.
Most of the major supporting actors are South-African (and they all give performances as good as Cheadle's). It was mainly filmed in and around Soweto (in Johannesburg, where I live).
Calling this film "this years Schindler's LIst" is, to put it lightly, unconscionable. Think "historically specific" next time, hey? Rant Over.
Do something from your end. Find out how. Avoid condescension.