Raises the specter of racism for me, but not in the context of the movie but in the context of the actors. As predominantly white westerners, we are told that we wouldn't accept a movie starring Africans about something as tragic as African slums and disadvantaged people. Hotel Rwanda aside, the people releasing those films are probably right, but shame on us for needing overly beautiful white people as our shepherd into this world of abject and total poverty, illness and corruption. Shame on us for not being able to feel as compassionately for an all black cast. Maybe that's racism, and maybe that is desensitization, a way of keeping ourselves sane after being presented with infomercial after infomercial of some christian origination or heartfelt actresses pleading for our help while holding naked pot-bellied starving children. And there may be some valid xenophobia there too--after all, don't we have enough poverty in America that we should worry about our poor first? As seen on tv, our poor were washed away and shunted like cattle into erstwhile happy arenas, while confused, mobbish and racist comments flooded our channels. Taken as fact these reports of roving gangs shooting at police officers and aid works were proved mostly untrue. The response at the time was always something about "those people."
But, we are dealing with fiction here. This is not a documentary, and it is not a retelling of truth fictionalized for book and screen. Or is it? It certainly reads as true, and the situations sound realistic enough. But the movie is about the argument of privilege, in so many ways, and so without the wealthy white people to counter the poor Africans, the idea of privilege could not have been established. This is, in a nutshell, colonialism 3.0. The corporations taking place of the monarchies in their interest in Africa. What makes the events more despicable is that the end goal isn't natural resources, it's human guinea pigs.
Why, then, this overlay of a love story? I think that to love this movie, you have to believe in some of the romantic ideas of Victorian England and African adventures, and you also have to believe that there is no way that these Africans can help themselves. Maybe it's true that with white people creating the problems, white people need to sweep them up. The romance was a key into the situation which was a key into the deeper story.
But, aside from those things, the film was well made. It looked like a skip-bleach process on the stock, which gave that lovely over-saturated, bright-hot colors. As a political thriller its fascinating, and if I was ignorant of many things that happened in Africa, and went to this movie purely as a thriller, I may have learned a bit. Which, of course, raises the issue that maybe my protesting is ignorant in of itself. Maybe I'm not the audience for the film. Imagine if James Bond told you something about the world--something you didn't know before. I can see the argument in that. Maybe that should sate me, and I should just take it at face value. But then, accepting things at face value is exactly what this film argues against. Back and forth, back and forth. At least, it seems, the film sparks us to think and talk about these issues.
Where we saw it: Movie Theater | We deign to rate it: 84 outta 100