In my country

Let’s start with the facts. In 1995, President Nelson Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commision, a court-like system meant to witness, record and, in some cases, pardon some of the most atrocious acts of violence, torture and, generally speaking, human rights violations that happened during the Apartheid. Its mission, the way I see it, was twofold. First, it was meant to actually achieve reconciliation between the black and white communities of South Africa (a mission whose degree of success is highly debatable). Second, the Court’s hearings were used as a mechanism of documenting these atrocities so that all South Africans could have a more nuanced perspective and resource materials on their history. The Court’s mission is, in itself, a controversy. To its architects, it was a device to uncover the truth by using amnesty for perpetrators as a mediating force. It wasn’t, in itself, a judicial body meant to punish those who have harmed others.  Based on the ethical African concept of “ubuntu” – which can be broadly defined as the ways in which people relate to each other – the TRC seemed more as an instrument of healing than one of revenge. But as the horrifying stories presented in the township hearings were being broadcast all over South Africa at the time, it was only natural that the entire process caused very mixed feelings among the general public.

John Boorman’s In my country, set at the time of the commission hearings, tries to capture the complexity of life in those tumultuous times while creating an enticing story that would be appealing to a Western audience. He is only partly successful in doing any of the two. Samuel Jackson plays Langston Whitfield, a Washington Post reporter covering the hearings. Whitfield is highly skeptical of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and his aversion towards the whole process becomes apparent both in his writing and his radical views of what happened in the country and what the role of “all the White people in South Africa” was. He thinks the perpetrators are easily getting away with murder and that justice is not served. As it happens, he meets Anna Malan, a white Afrikaaner poet who was commissioned to do daily broadcasts for the South African Broadcasting Company. The two start on the wrong foot, as they have very different views on the commission, but they end up sleeping together. In the process, we think, Whitfield changes his mind and eventually sees the value of the hearings but the script doesn’t specifically reveals it.

Now, the movie received mixed reviews from critics. After doing a little bit of research I realized that Western critics criticized the movie heavily for its unnecessary sub-plots, love stories, and predictability, while South African critics praised them for covering such a critical episode in post-Apartheid history.

As far as I am concerned, if there was one topic where sexual intercourse should have been left out of the equation, perhaps the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was one of them. The white Afrikaner journalist falls in love with the black American journalist and they eventually end up in bed.  Even if the director wanted to use this sub-plot as a metaphor for the reconciliation, the idea was rather simplistic at best. After all, Whitfield is American so his background does not really qualify his for the metaphor.

Otherwise, I think this is a good movie in that it actually introduces the Western audience to an episode in South Africa’s post-apartheid history which is not actually known by a lot of people.

I rate this movie 6/10  

A desperate mother makes a painful sacrifice: she sends her son away to an uncertain future in order to spare him from an almost certain death.  The last thing she tells him is “Go, live and become” and these words will resonate heavily throughout the movie. Too young to understand what is happening to him, the unnamed 9 year old African boy poses as Schlomo as he is taken out of a refugee camp in Sudan and rescued by the Israeli authorities. It is 1985 and the Israeli government with the assistance of the United States is rescuing about 8000 Ethiopian Jews – also known as Falasha – in order to help them resettle in Israel. But our boy is not actually Jewish, and his arrival to Israel is both the miraculous event that saves his life and the heavy burden (his secret socio-cultural identity) that he will have to carry with him for the next 15 years.

Director Radu Mihaileanu’s touching movie, called Live and become, follows the story of this child growing up in Israel (played by Moshe Agazai as a boy, Mosche Abebe as an adolescent and Sirak M. Sabahat as a young adult)  while having to live a life built on a painful and frightening lie.

Schomo embarks on a journey that will ultimately shape his entire existence. In a way he is lucky: he escapes the daily struggles of the Ethiopian refugees, the hunger and deprivations he faced and his departure might very well have saved his life. But this is not the type of story we hear quite often in the West when a poor African boy is saved and brought to the West where he is warmly welcomed and supported by everyone he encounters. This is not a soap opera, but an epic journey through a society that undergoes social changes which are just as critical as the ones Schomo himself is forced to experience.

While he is adopted by loving and caring parents who do their best in assisting Schlomo through his difficult transition, he has to fight other unseen and unforeseen chimeras with profound social implications for his upbringing: bigotry, racism and social exclusion.  Schlomo, who is torn both by his secret and his ardent desire to fit in the new world, is constantly helped by his family and Ethopian-community leader Qes Amhra who makes it his mission to assist the boy in his quest for personal achievement.

Some critical scenes denote an extraordinary intellectual finesse of Romanian-born director and screenplay writer Radu Mihaileanu. When Schlomo is expelled from school because other parents are afraid he will contaminate their children with some “African diseases” the mother dramatically licks his face in an attempt to show that his son poses no danger. Overall, the character remains rather passive throughout the movie, which correctly suggests his internal turmoil, drama and pain. Schlomo poses for what he isn’t, a lie that dramatically affects and influences his inner life. This is an uneven process which critically influences the way he acts upon the world. For example, he enters a contest on Jewish laws and moral codes just to assert his place in the community.

The Falasha are progressively accepted in Israel but is not devoid of contradictions. When local rabbis try to purify the Falasha, we are witnessing a drama of astronomical proportions as characters like Schlomo realize that they are not fully wanted in their communities despite their sincere attempts to fit in. They skin color does not quite qualify them as members of the Chosen People. Which raises the question: how far do people have to go before they are accepted as equals upon moving to a new country?

From time to time, this beautiful drama is also laced with humor which seems to be an inspired technique meant to release the tension mounting up from the injustice and racism that the main character is forced to go through.

Live and become is ultimately a story that has never been told. The consequences of operation Moses, the struggle experienced by Ethiopian Jews in Israel, their quest for socio-cultural acceptance and personal identity had not been unexplored until Mihaileanu’s brilliant movie. Leaving creative decisions aside, this film brings a new perspective on a historical event that many of us have yet to internalize, understand and appreciate for what it meant to those affected by it.

Perhaps, Live and become is not only a story about Schlomo, but also one about the Israeli society as a whole, one that is also forced to internalize the social changes that happen often beyond people’s control.

One should at least watch this movie because it raises a very troublesome question: what really makes a person belong to any given society? An immigrant myself, I watched this movie thinking of the types of contradictions, cultural differences and difficulties that I myself have experienced after moving to the United States. The fact that Schlomo eventually finds his place and role in life was ultimately reassuring. This is a thought-provoking movie which requires energy and time to be digested.  It is also a timeless story which oddly captures both the weight and burden of history.

Live and become is a movie about detachment and engagement, one which is equally mind-blowing and harshly unsettling. It takes viewers out of the comfort of their own living-rooms to an unfamiliar and eccentric ground which exposes each and every one of us to the injustices, inequalities and differences that we often choose to ignore. It is an open invitation to cosmopolitanism and realism, one we would be unreasonable to disregard.

I highly recommend this movie.
Movie rated 10/10

Live and Become trailer:

The action happens in 1976, in Soweto, supposedly before the infamous uprisings.  I know that, simply because there’s no mention of the massacres. Overall the movie lacks any contextualization of the struggle for freedom and dramatic events are interrupted by dance numbers which means you’re never sure of what is really happening.

Sarafina is a young girl who secretly cherishes a picture of Nelson Mandela. She wants him free and comes to realize that disobedience is her last weapon. She becomes more radical when a boy she likes is brutally murdered by the white cops. Her only source of inspiration is her teacher Mary, with whom she shares her frustration and dreams for a better future. Mary is not in piece with herself either. She is in love with a hardcore militant who asks her to hide a gun just before he is incarcerated. Things get more complicated and confusing when the machinegun is eventually passed on to Serafina. What this subplot is supposed to mean remains a mystery.

Perhaps the most critical scenes in the movie are the ones in which brutal acts of violence are committed: when the young boy is killed for no apparent reason, when the “bad African” working for the whites is set on fire, when Sarafina is tortured and so on. Whether the violence is really necessary remains unexplored. The apartheid as a historical era shows that violence was necessary in order to weaken the white regime. The movie doesn’t really make that point. Instead, we get more dancing and singing which feels like a slap of my face.

In a wealthy Afrikaner neighborhood of Johannesburg we meet Sarafina’s mother played with astounding grace by South African legend Miriam Makeba. Sarafina visits her after a traumatizing moment in her life. She doesn’t know what to say or to express how much she appreciates her mother. To me, the movie reaches the maximum intensity when we hear the following dramatic rhetorical question: “Mama is good with children. Only her children don’t live here, do they?” Another scene which really makes a valuable point features Sarafina saying: “And if I don’t live to see the day, you better believe it. This is my home and I am home to stay!” If only the director spent more time on showing the injustices of apartheid in such terms, maybe we would have gotten more value out of Sarafina.

I personally also like the moments when Sarafina feels she is surrounded by traitors. There is no one she can trusts as government puppets and informants are everywhere. When she is paranoid and doesn’t know who to trust. It makes me think of my native country of Romania, and my parents who lived through similar times.  I also enjoyed the scenes in which Whoopi Goldberg acts as a history teacher who teaches the African side of the story. Her patience and non-violent approach are rather inspirational. I wish I could say the same about her South African accent which sounds more like the one I hear on the South Side of Chicago than the ones in Soweto. Which I am also familiar with, hence my ability to compare the two.

The movie oversimplifies this apartheid and that only suggests that the director did not know how to explore those uncertain times. We kind of understand that the movie is about Sarafina’s dramatic formation as a young activist who is discovering her political consciousness, but who can be sure of anything in a movie like this?

Mbongeni Ngema and Hugh Masekela do a fantastic job at composing the songs and the music performed in this musical and perhaps it is worth watching Sarafina at least to admire their work.

Directors interested in apartheid, FYI: The next time you want to make a movie about those regrettable years in South Africa’s history, you better know what you want to say first.

Whoopi Goldberg once said: “I went to Africa. I’m an American.” It really seems that this movie took the same perspective on apartheid.

I rate this movie 5/10.

I couldn’t find a movie trailer, but I think you will enjoy the following song just as much. It’s called: Freedom is coming tomorrow which perhaps would have been a much more fit title for the movie:

“I have complex feelings about Eastwood and his libertarian politics: for me, he has never understood social processes, and works with lone, heroic figures that must triumph despite society and law. So I felt sure that he would scant the complex historical forces at play in Mandela’s historical role, and in the South African transition. Resorting to the game and the world cup was then a simple formulaic device to reduce these complexities, and also the challenges of nation-building under postcolonial conditions.”

Invictus was only the second movie directed by Eastwood that I’ve seen, after Million Dollar Baby. Recently, I watched an older Africa-related movie made by Eastwood, called White Hunter, Black Hurt. And now I accurately understand what my acquaintance meant.

Eastwood plays the flamboyant and historical character of director John Huston, the famous filmmaker and screenwriter who made African Queen, one of the earliest movies about Africa. Called John Wilson here, Huston has two obsessions: he wants to make a wonderful movie and kill an elephant. Why killing an elephant? Because it’s a sin he wants to commit. White Hunter, Black Hurt, an adaptation of the novel with the same name, deconstructs these obsessions and tries to make sense of this extremely complex personality. To some extent, Eastwood is successful in his endeavor. The character he plays borders paranoia and shows a libertarian mantra so uncharacteristic of people of his time (the action happens in the early aftermath of the Second Word War).

Making a movie about the conflicts inside an artist is quite an appealing project. But what Eastwood, the director does, is exactly what the anthropologist quoted earlier said. He oversimplifies the realities of the time and portrays an eccentric man who fights against everyone for justice. Which ends up being a quite shortsighted perspective.

Wilson goes to Africa accompanied by his friend, Pete Verrill, an elegant Jewish young man whose main mission is to smile, entertain his older companion and keep him on track with his project.  When they reach Africa, Uganda to be more precise, they go to Lake Victoria hotel, a famous high class hotel owned by a white settler. One evening, the two have diner with a gorgeous young woman who Wilson fancies quite a lot. But it turns out that she’s anti-Semite which makes the old director snipe and dismiss her in a very brutal manner out of reverence for his younger friend. But immediately after that, a servant drops a tray and is mistreated by his white employee. That makes Wilson go after this guy as well. The character challenges the white owner to a fight and then tells Verrill: “we fought the preliminary for the kikes now we will fight the main event for the niggers.” Really? Is that Eastwood’s conception of an individual making the world a better place? Granted that his character admits he’s an intruder in Africa, do we really reduce racism and anti-Semitism to a snide dismissal over a glass of wine and a fistfight? Seriously…

See the scene for yourself right here:

This movie might have some interesting scenes but overall it’s way too verbose and, as I’ve been pointing out, it oversimplifies some of the issues it deals with, to the extent that it looks fake. On a different note, both Eastwood and Jeff Fahey (as Pete Verrill) play their characters quite honorably (my criticisms are related to the script and the vision of this movie, not the actors’ play). In addition, the limited glimpses of African life that we get are quite charming. Parts of the dialogue, especially between Wilson and his producer are hilarious. This suggests that there might be some value in watching White Hunter, Black Hurt after all.

The tragedy with Clint Eastwood and his character is that they both believe that small gestures can have a huge impact or that they mean a lot. They can, but not always.

This movie has a 90% rank on rottentomatoes.com which I find completely overrated.

I give this movie 4/10 as I ultimately considered watching it a waste of my time.

Movie trailer:

In the terrorized village, a mother prepared to give birth. She suddenly hears a voice from within: “Mother, give birth to me!” “A child who can speak from his mother’s womb can give birth to himself” comes the answer. And this is how Kirikou is born. The world he in born does not welcome him warmly. Most of the adult men have either died or been kidnapped. There is no water and the grass has dried up. The sorcerer put a spell on the village and most of the people gave up any hope that things will improve during their lifetime. But Kirikou is not about to give up that easily. Armed only with his intelligence and advantaged by his size – no one expects such a tiny person to be a worthy opponent – he embarks on a quest to change history. And he does so by persistently asking everyone “why is the sorceress so mean”.

Written and directed by Frenchman Michel Ocelot, this animated movie is a delightful experience for grown-ups and children alike. Kirikou and the Sorceress is inspired by a West African tale and is profoundly embedded within the local culture. There is always an explanation for witchcraft and instead of simply fighting against it, you need to first solve the puzzle – find the reason why things happen the way they do. After Kirikou saves some of the other children from a river who has a mind of his own, he brings water back to the village. Then he goes on the most dangerous mission, one that cost the lives of most of the warriors in the village: he wants to break the spell of the sorceress. But he needs to know why she causes so much harm in the first place because he thinks that is the key questions. He puts his cunning intelligence at play and evades Karaba’s spies in order to visit his grandfather. It turns out to be a good idea as the old wise man reveals to him that the sorceress is mean because her enemies stuck a poisoned thorn in her back. That raises deeper questions about the human nature: are we naturally good or bad or do we change based on circumstances and events?

Will Kirikou manage to save the village and restore the cosmic balance? You need to get the movie to find out.

What distinguished this movie from the other ones that are set in Africa is that Kirikou and the Sorceress actually has the word “authentic” written all over it. The animation is rather unsophisticated and the village is not by any means romanticized. In fact, those who have watched any movie made by famous Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène can perhaps notice where Michel Ocelot got inspired from. Famous Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour provides the beautiful and original soundtrack for this wonderful movie, giving it an additional sense of space and authenticity. In addition, all actors dubbing the animated movie have an accent which makes more accurate as for most Africans English is the second language (mind you that the original version was in fact in French). Another thing to be noticed is the informed use of vivid colors in the film-making process and the astute choice of local decorative objects – statues, ornaments, and clothes – all of which can appeal to both an African and a Western audience.

Lastly, what mattered most to me was the fact that Kirikou and the Sorceress actually caters for all audiences. I watched it with the boys I babysit for in Chicago and we all loved it. They liked it because it was entertaining and because they found it fascinating that someone even smaller than them can be so courageous and clever. I liked it because I finally watched a movie about Africa that I could simply enjoy for its artistic expression, the narrative and how the story unfolds. The fact that I got even more out of the movie was simply unexpected. And much appreciated.

I rate this movie 10/10 and I strongly recommend you buy the DVD.

Quote from Chicago Tribune 1999:

“In its 16-year history, the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival’s two juries – one comprising children, the other adults – had never given their top prized to the same film, until last year, when both juries honored Kirikou and the Sorceress, a beautifully animated first feature by French filmmaker Michel Ocelot about an African boy’s battle with an evil witch for the soul of his people. Filled with lessons about morality, bravery, selflessness and compassion, Kirikou and the Sorceress is top-shelf family entertainment.” - Chicago Tribune.

What these journalists are doing is rather honorable. They travel to the DRC, speak to some of the locals and even make it to General Nkunda, the infamous Tutsi warlord widely blamed for fueling the war in the Kivu provinces. They travel to the mines, film most of their journey and then go back to Europe in search for more additional answers. Generally they don’t get them, but at least they manage to put a face behind this rampant industry.

Personally, after watching this documentary I didn’t find anything new about coltan, but I am, as I said, quite familiar with the topic. But that is not my main criticism to the movie. I was rather annoyed with the fact that these journalists don’t really do a good job at explaining what this mineral is used for. They tell you how it is produced, how it gets to the regional capitals and then straight to Europe or China, but they make no attempt to explain that this despicable mineral is in fact fueled by our hunger for faster and better computers, phones and other similar commodities. The point this documentary misses almost entirely is that the coltan is not a curse on its own. This mineral could arguably bring wealth and economic prosperity to the Kivu provinces. But the war that is happening here prevents that from happening. This war is indirectly financed by us, the Western consumers, and had it not been for our demand and ignorance maybe the militia groups would not have had so much money to continue financing their dirty business. The coltan is indicative of a very simple paradox and if these journalists were more informed than sensationalist, perhaps more of us would have been outraged after watching this documentary. Basically, our money and lack of concern for how cell-phones, PlayStations or computers are made, kills people in Congo. And not only. The  United Nations Mission in DRC (MONUC) is made of peacekeeping troops sent by the world governments to restore peace in he country. Because multinational companies don’t care where the raw materials come from, they pay for the coltan. The money is then used to buy arms that are subsequently used against the MONUC troops. It’s that simple.

As far as the local actors go, the documentary does a fairly good job at pointing out who they are, what they do, where they get their coltan from and how they take it out of the country. One thing I discovered during my stay in Goma two years ago was that various companies would sell other minerals legally and use their business as a cover up for getting coltan out of the country. As coltan is in such a high demand and, for now, it’s pretty much everywhere in Eastern Congo, going into this business is a profitable solution for those Congolese that have the capital to do so.

Overall, this documentary is rather interesting but as I mentioned above, it lacks perspective. I rate it 6/10

Interestingly enough, you can watch the entire documentary here.

Lastly, for you, people who have never seen coltan in your lives, it might be interesting to get a good idea on how this mineral really looks like. I am therefore uploading some pictures that I took in DRC in 2008. In my hand you will see the mineral that so many companies would kill for. At that time, when I posed as a Western young scout interested in buying coltan, I was told that based on the degree of purification, the price varies from 125 dollars a pound to 250 dollars a pound. You will then see that in the pictures attached below, the color varies. The lighter is it, the better it is. Why? Because in the later pictures, the coltan is better synthesized and consequently it is closer to the state needed in order to be used in a PlayStation for example.

[View with PicLens]

The State of Denial is a heartbreaking documentary that explores the difficulties HIV-infected South Africans face on a daily basis. And their inspiring struggles. It provides an insider’s view, South African born director Elaine Epstein, into the complicated factors that allow HIV/AIDS to spread at such an alarming speed.

The documentary focuses on what used to be “the greatest impediment to dealing with the epidemic”: former president Thabo Mbeki, one of the most infamous AIDS denialists in the world. Mbeki has been criticized for his beliefs and actions on various occasions and I myself have written about his stand on AIDS from time to time. But State of Denial takes it a step further. Instead of simply blaming him for the devastating effects of his policies, this documentary allows viewers to see and listen to Mbeki personally denying that “a virus can cause a syndrome.” The result is both painful and despicable as, you know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  By alternating shorts declarations of the poker face president with the humanitarian efforts to assist the HIV positive South Africans, and the fight against multinational corporations that refuse to make the ARV medicine more affordable, this movie depicts a much more complicated drama than many of us might have been familiar with.

For many years, Thabo Mbeki and his administration have prohibited or refused to finance the ARV distribution in South Africa being more concerned with the effects of the medicine over the testing subjects than the benefits and the alleviation of pain that the drugs might along. This, some Mbeki supporters argued, was the president’s fight against international companies that use Africa as a testing ground. While I am familiar with the argument, I think AIDS is bigger than ideological battles and that Mbeki could have found different ways of dealing with unlawful Western companies without putting the lives of hundreds of thousands at risk.

By arguing that AIDS is a disease of poverty which cannot be connected solely to a virus, Thabo Mbeki contributed to the general confusion about the disease in South Africa and elsewhere. More than 400,000 people died during this short period of time (only four years) before Thabo Mbeki came to grips with reality. In the process, State of Denial puts a human face on this generic epidemic and, without directly arguing that Thabo Mbeki’s theories are ludicrous, it progressively deconstructs most of his erroneous assumptions. From the slums of Durban and Soweto, to the upper class neighborhoods in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the director interviews various AIDS patients and activists who clearly show that the disease is not only caused by poverty and malnutrition but has more complex causes and consequences. As one MD physician astutely points out at the 2000 International AIDS Conference convened in Durban, South Africa, the president, who gave the opening speech at the conference “presented his views on the AIDS epidemic in the same way: he made no mention on making antiretrovirals available to anyone in the private sectors.” Mike Merson, who some of view might know as the former head of the WHO Global Progress on AIDS division captures the essence of Mbeki’s denialist take on the disease: “a lot of the things he was saying were true. Poverty does drive this epidemic. But this is primarily an epidemic of the sexually transmitted diseases. People have to hear that. ”

The documentary excels at capturing the growing frustration among HIV positive patients. Towards the ends of the movie, the brother of an HIV+ patient dies unexpectedly of the same disease. The burial ceremony causes the family insupportable pain and the remaining brother talks freely about what he felt during those sore times: “For me, it was the most traumatic time in my life because I could see myself in him. You know, he didn’t really have to die as helplessly as he did. And not only him, but thousands and thousands of people are dying unnecessarily. It makes me sick. ”

The documentary also introduces us to Zackie Achmat, a South African AIDS activist who refused to take ARV until they were made available to the general public. As chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign, one of the largest organizations in South Africa who are fighting for the rights of the HIV/AIDS patients in the country, Achmat has fought against ARV producing companies and the state of South Africa and won both battles. The New Yorker once famously called him: “the most important dissident in the country since Nelson Mandela” and in this documentary you get a good idea on why that is the case.

State of Denial is not only important for the striking images that it brings to us. Or the fact that many people are running out of time because of politics and greed. During the closing credits we find out that four of the people interviewed died before the documentary was released, some only within days after sharing their pain with the filmmaker so that we, the general audience, can have something to think about. You have to watch this movie because it makes some broader arguments about the disease which we all should analyze and accept. Elaine Epstein, the filmmaker, suggests that AIDS is perhaps the biggest threat to South Africa since the end of apartheid.  It is not solely the problem of an individual, but a community affair, a disaster that affects each and every one of us. Whereas it is more likely to affect people living in poverty, the disease strikes unexpectedly and we should all be aware of that. The movie broadly suggests that global health care inequalities, economic and political interests and causes that have to be factored in when analyzing the rapid spread of the disease.

I was extremely excited to see my favorite female politician taking a strong stand on HIV/AIDS and criticizing Mbeki for his actions. Patricia de Lille, a prominent South African politician and the leader of the Independent Democrats will later on insist on allowing the judicial system in South Africa to investigate thoroughly the arm deals that involved the current SA president, Jacob Zuma. While under tremendous pressure from other politicians to drop her endeavor, she made an argument which I found inspirational. She argued that she didn’t fight to get rid of apartheid in order to be oppressed and disillusioned under a new political system. She would also adamantly declare that the judicial system should be allowed to run its course and decide whether one is guilty of wrongdoings or not without any political interference in the process. Her initial presumptions capture rather painfully the failure of the South African government under Thabo Mbeki’s leadership. THIS is not what millions of other South Africans fought for either: to be abandoned by their government and die in misery and pain. While the South African government has respected the Supreme Court’s decision that HIV positive patients should be granted access to ARV treatment that was too late for many HIV positive patients. May the death of 400,000 people and counting be a lesson and not simply a statistical fact that politicians and policymakers take lightly.

Some of my South African friends told me that this movie was to their country what Philadelphia was to Americans which I found to be quite an interesting comparison.

This movie is rated 10/10

No Movie Trailer available online.

This movie is so terrible that while set in Africa it does not feature one single African and the only “indigenous” we see is a South Asian guy. In addition, while called Blood Monkey, guess what? You don’t actually see any monkeys whatsoever. Moving on, the archeologist’s first question when reaching Africa is “This is good stuff, like tigers and stuff?” And then, to make this into an even bigger charade, the script makes it in such a way that the characters  actually get attacked by one!!! (For those who don’t know that yet, there are no tigers in Africa.) This movie is so retarded that when a young woman is kidnapped and pulled in the middle of the night from inside an improvised toilet, she does not even scream or utter a word. She just allows herself to be kidnapped while apparently miming shock for the camera.  Later, when she gets out of the water, what would you say if I tell you that instead of being wet, her blouse is just dirty?

Arguably, this movie has only one strength: Oscar winning actor F. Murray Abraham’s role as fanatical professor Hamilton is rather interesting to watch. He plays a mad professor who will sacrifice anything for a cause, including using other graduate students as baits for his research project. His excellent performance captures strikingly different stages of insanity which makes it quite exciting to follow. However, given the quite poor quality of the script, the low budget of the movie, the crappy special effects and the overall arguable value of this production, I find it unacceptable for anyone who has ever had the honor to receive an Oscar to play in such a abominable movie. Compared to Blood Monkey, Cat Woman was the Titanic or the Slumdog Millionaire of the year. This movie is so unbearable that I could only think of the actors’ involvement in this production as a form of cheap prostitution.  F. Murray Abraham: your presence in this movie, though notable, is a disgrace brought on your profession. You should be ashamed of yourself because Blood Monkey is literally a slap on your face.

In addition, this movie amazes its audience with the biggest piece of crap of a dialogue ever. One character actually makes the following statement: “Rain is urine.”  Wow, dude. I have nothing more to say…

If you really want to find value (and trust me, getting any value out of this movie is more difficult than actually finding the needle in a haystack the size of Manhattan) you can look at the typology of the characters. I have never seen more retarded characters than the ones depicted in this movie. For that matter, I don’t really know if the person who wrote the screenplay is either an imbecile or a genius who purposely tried to create such terrible characters. The jury is still out for deliberations on that.

Anyways, this movie has technically nothing to do with Africa, it’s of no use to anyone, and if you read this review and then still rent this movie thinking that it is in fact a good movie, then you might be one of the characters.

I rate this movie 0/10

Movie Trailer:

To me, the most emotional part of the movie is not his return to Kisumu, but his visit to the refugee camp in Chad. He is exposed to terrifying stories about their daily struggles and the lives they are condemned to live. Both Barack and Michele are devastated by what they hear and pledge to take a direct interest in the region. But the Darfur issue, like all the other major themes in this documentary, is treated in rather shallow and superficial terms. The hard questions are never asked and to a great extent Obama seems very cautious not to upset anyone in his travels. Which, in turn, upsets me as a viewer with a ground knowledge of African politics and realities.

I cannot say I didn’t like the movie as a whole but the complete lack of objectivity and impartial narrative line was something I was rather uncomfortable with. Given the fact that I’ve been an Obama supporter from 2006 I didn’t need any convincing that the current president is a great politician, which means that I expected more from this DVD. I didn’t get it. At the end of the 60 minute long documentary, we still don’t know what Obama’s view of African politics is, what his vision for the continent might look like and whether he approves or disproves of how politics is made across Africa or say the least in his father’s native country. He takes an equidistant stand on African current affairs and his speeches are rather broad and definitely not indicative of what his thoughts and views of the continent are.

In some ways, watching this documentary made me think how disappointed I would have felt, if I were an average Kenyan who might have had the chance to meet Obama on this trip. The senator sounds so interested in African politics, in the small businesses or the social issues he addresses and he definitely gives you the feeling that this great American will in fact give his best in trying to enact change in US foreign politics. Everywhere he goes, specifically in Kenya, he is welcome like a local hero, a man who succeeded in his life and is now ready to give back to his community. I’m not saying that Obama is socially or culturally Kenyan, in fact I believe quite the opposite (that he is truly American) but to the people he meets and interacts with, that’s how he looks like.

Obama makes what turned out to be an unfulfilled promise in this documentary. In one of his speeches he promises to try to shape the United States’ policy towards Africa so that the interests of the countries he visits will be addressed to their benefits. Five years later we see that his pledge has yet to be addressed. Perhaps now President Obama is the one who should watch this documentary, as he clearly suggests that the continent might be of great significance to America’s interests which has yet to be seen in US foreign policy.

I rate this documentary 6/10

Movie Trailer

The main characters, followed by Umbopa (in this movie, a queen in disguise) are travelling through South Africa in search for the treasure’s alleged location. They are taken hostage by some Zulu warriors, brought in front of their king, who was in fact bribed by Hartford. The villain doesn’t stop here. He kidnapps the white girl, kills the king and runs to the temple where he finally gets killed by Quatermain. Girl saved, Umbopa becomes the queen of the tribe and everyone’s happy. The end.

There is hardly anything good to be said about this movie.  It is a cheap, unimpressive, poorly shot movie. A nine year old could write a better script and I can actually name a few who could literally do that. At one point, the protagonists are on this ancient train, which only has two cars and they are the only ones, besides the railroad engineer who are riding it. There are a handful of unnecessary acts of brutality which are not contextualized or fully explored: there’s this “tribal” device which is used to decapitate people. A Zulu warrior is lynched by the king’s aid for bringing the white people to their land, despite the fact that the very next scene we find that the king himself ordered their arrest. The same device is then used in the temple to kill Hartford.

In the feature bonus section of the DVD, director Mark Atkins says it took nine days of filming, and everyone on the crew had to do more work than what they initially agreed to. This is still not enough of a justification for how bad things ended up.

Sean Cameron Michael as Quatermain

Perhaps the worst thing about this movie is that it has no sense of direction or logic and that it is painfully slow-moving.  If I were to describe it to a blind man while watching it, it would go something like this: Nothing is happening… nothing is happening… some people are shooting at each other… nothing is happening…. some ladies are showing their breasts….nothing is happening. This is a movie no one should go through the pain of watching it. I do not wish this excruciating experience to the worst of my enemies. You get absolutely no value of watching it, you derive no meaning or personal satisfaction. This movie guarantees that you will be bored to death by the end of it. This movie has the word terrible written all over it.

Some technical details that make the movie even worst: many of the shots are repetitive (you literally see the same thing over and over again throughout the movie), the background music is often too loud which makes it difficult to follow the dialogue. During the final battle between Quatermain and the Hartford, the camera flips and shows their faces in the struggle. Their facial expressions simply scream “fake” at you at over and over again.

Watching this movie should be used as a torture method by the secret services. It is that depressing. Honestly, I would have simply burned the DVD if I did have to return it to Netflix.

I will end up by posting some of the hilarious comments from IMDB and Netflix that also suggest, if I wasn’t explicit enough, how bad this movie really is:

IMDB:

• It’s an awful joke. It’s a high school project gone bad.
• I’d rather go to prison and be some guy’s man-bitch than ever watch this movie again!!!
• I have seen XX rated movies with much better direction then what was attempted in this 1 hour 33 minute 10 second movie. Time actually went slower watching this movie then when I am on the tread mill at the health club. This movie can actually cause a tumor. This made “Doctor T and the Women” seem like a 4 star movie. This movie MUST have been filmed in only 3 hours. There was so much walking in the grass I thought I was watching PBS. There was boobs shown in the movie and I did not even care, boobs!
• And my all time favorite: So bad it can ruin your whole week.

Netflix:

• DO NOT RENT THIS MOVIE!!! It is not worth the plastic it plays from.
• This piece of trash is a CON JOB. It preys on people who quickly grab it at the store or put it on their queue, confusing it with “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (as I did.)

Watch the deceptive trailer:

This movie is rated 0 / 10. I should sue the producing company for making me lose an hour and thirty minutes on watching this disgusting movie.