Excellent points, dignity written all over it, competent screenplay, great acting direction, OK mise-en-scène, but strangely distant and uninvolved (certainly not on purpose).
I guess they wanted to avoid cheap drama (manipulative music, cheap tears etc..), and I'm all for it, but sadly the result is just what the female reporter sharply underlined: all we see is dead Africans, not the awful tragedy of people suffering beyond all reason.
We see only two actual killings, both are seen from a distance, the rest are just dead bodies like the ones we see on the news.
I would have preferred to see a movie showing the actual nightmare that is a genocide, by focusing on the suffering, rather than on the ethical questionings of a handful of western, white people, and the heroism of a priest. Still sounds kinda patronizing.
Nevertheless, this movie avoids the hype trap of the neo-dogma / reality TV style adopted by mpost recent movies with a 'message', and that's really a good thing. All in all, even though it could have been great and fails, it was aiming high and did reach some important ethical goals.
Make your own opinion.
I guess they wanted to avoid cheap drama (manipulative music, cheap tears etc..), and I'm all for it, but sadly the result is just what the female reporter sharply underlined: all we see is dead Africans, not the awful tragedy of people suffering beyond all reason.
We see only two actual killings, both are seen from a distance, the rest are just dead bodies like the ones we see on the news.
I would have preferred to see a movie showing the actual nightmare that is a genocide, by focusing on the suffering, rather than on the ethical questionings of a handful of western, white people, and the heroism of a priest. Still sounds kinda patronizing.
Nevertheless, this movie avoids the hype trap of the neo-dogma / reality TV style adopted by mpost recent movies with a 'message', and that's really a good thing. All in all, even though it could have been great and fails, it was aiming high and did reach some important ethical goals.
Make your own opinion.