White Shadow is a vérité style depiction of Alias, a young albino growing up in the outskirts of an unnamed city in Tanzania. The primary conflict is that as an albino, Alias is the prey of witch doctors, who cut up albinos and use them for outlandish potions and mysticism. His journey shows us all sorts of elements of a world that is completely foreign to us, but remains wholly individual and never tries to be the definitive "Africa story" that would be an easy route to take. Because of the film's looser style, it requires extra attention from the viewer and doesn't have a clear through line, but is compelling because of how otherworldly it feels. There isn't a big takeaway or call to action, but the film's expose cannot help but leave a mark. There are a few incredible sequences, including a betting scene and a sequence where the protagonists are digging through e-waste looking for salvageable electronics, but the collective whole still feels looser than it needs to be, and the stylistic elements of the film are not employed often enough to be the focus of the movie. White Shadow will most likely not be playing in US theaters anytime soon due to a depiction of animal cruelty that probably wasn't fake (although is rather tame compared to any day at a US meat factory). However, as a festival film, it is intriguing and unlike anything else you will see, and for that alone it may be worth your time.
6 Reviews
White Shadow, a powerful film.
amybelitsos9 May 2014
This film really blew me away. I saw it recently at the SF Film Festival. The camera work and editing style was both linear and non-linear, which I found totally engrossing and it made me realize how RAW everything about this film is. From the obvious difficulties and complexities of just shooting it, to creating the feeling of "fly on the wall documentary" of a village & culture, and then unfolding a story about a real boy who is in a living hell. I was both paralyzed and traumatized in the experience of watching it. I imagine the director used small hand-held cameras as there was auto focus & exposure,cool angles from the floor, etc. Some very beautiful and arresting imagery punctuated the overall manic texture of this film. The performances the director got from these real people was astonishing.Finally, the sound design and music completed the experience and it is etched in my mind. A stunning and unique achievement. Thank you to the director and for the producers who took a chance.I hope and pray change comes for these people who live as they do.
Strong in premise, but confusing in execution
Lowbacca197726 April 2014
The concept of the film is an interesting one, the story of an albino in Africa, facing dangers somewhere where albinos are killed because their body parts are considered to have magical properties. As a premise, I do find that quite interesting.
However, the style of the film-making really rubbed me the wrong way. Rather than one linear story, the film seems to jump around in time a little bit, and I simply don't understand what time points I'm looking at and where, and it just doesn't make sense to me. Without being able to follow it, I just ended up lost, and I didn't feel like the characters were particularly fleshed out, something not aided particularly much by character evolution being difficult for me to spot as scenes jumped around a bit.
I was a bit let down by this as I don't think it conveyed a strong story.
However, the style of the film-making really rubbed me the wrong way. Rather than one linear story, the film seems to jump around in time a little bit, and I simply don't understand what time points I'm looking at and where, and it just doesn't make sense to me. Without being able to follow it, I just ended up lost, and I didn't feel like the characters were particularly fleshed out, something not aided particularly much by character evolution being difficult for me to spot as scenes jumped around a bit.
I was a bit let down by this as I don't think it conveyed a strong story.
modern classic of African cinematography
binkhalidsonic2 September 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I just watched this on an Emirates flight and I was compelled to write a review because it is so good. Actually it is terrifying masterpiece. This film is shot in the classic African way of cinematography by shooting in real settings with lots of amateur who perhaps did not know they where going to be cast in a movie. In doing so the whole film gives a sense of realism that is not usually experienced in film, but is common in old-school African cinema from West Africa. The core group of actors, especially the kids, have a playful and adaptive dialogue and interaction that draws us into feeling as if you know everything about them... I think that is what makes this so terrifying. This film deals with witchcraft, and why it is persistent in society. Not rural society, but modern urban society in Tanzania. And more specifically why people are willing to murder people, in particular children, to sell their body parts. The most interesting aspect of this film is that we see the spirit world, as real supernatural forces juxtaposed against the modern, yet technological wasteland that is the slums of Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania. So to understand this film you need to understand that there are many scenes where dead people are narrating to us and other characters are communicating to supernatural forces. In a timeless, omniscient perspective of this film you are constantly questioning yourself, and your perspectives of the world searching for some kind of redemptive quality in humanity. Is there any? Watch the film and find out!
Spoiler Alert but just a little - The Most Shattering film I have seen recently OR My 2014 Top Ten but who Cares.
JanoWitz8126 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I already walked into the New Horizons Cinema in Wroclaw with high expectations and that usually is not a very good thing, there was a buzz in the festival and all the screenings where booked to see this film.
I don't really know if this is a review or more of a description of the sheer mouth opening energy that took over the entire audience. Admittedly when you set out to go watch a film about an Albino boy in East Africa, hunted for the color of his skin by witch doctors who make good business out of trading his parts into fabled miracles, well you expect something particular.
Make no mistake about it, this is not an Africa film or AN ISSUE film, this is a global subject, very well hidden and integrated into the surface of this skin. I cannot pin point the moment I fell in, but somewhere in the first ten minutes a sense of real trauma kicked in and I felt like "now I must deal with it". I realized this ride is intense and instead of forcing myself on it I had to let it lead me and well it did - Into the darkest most claustrophobic feeling of isolation, suspicion and being hunted, Then suddenly shaken into the lightest and most beautiful joy of friendship with a ghost like boy called "Salum". The film rattles you from one scene to the other, the cuts are aggressive, the colors the spaces the violence is always kept through this perspective of this boy Alias, played by the incredible Hamisi Bazili. How the hell did they find this Kid?
Mini Spoiler here - My take on this film is that it starts from a dream and a very strong Trauma and the rest of the film you the audience as the main character must find a way to connect to reality with the trauma pounding the drums, non stop. Everyone is out to get you! and at the end, well, another spoiler alert! Thats the choice you must make in which world you wish to stay. THE STORY - (Spoiler Alert) A boy, "Alias", experiences his father's very graphic and brutal death is sent by his mother to the big city under the care of his not very reliable uncle. The uncle is in more trouble then we know and very quickly the city is no different then the bush. Add to that a touch of almost incest and a ghost child narrating, not to mention, witchcraft. All that under the eye of a camera that feels like it is coming from the vortex of the another dimension. Perhaps the camera is a character in itself.
Deshe weaves his way through what would have been a very conventional direct storyline in the most elusive unexpected way and somehow the music, the image and the thoughts of the film all become one. This is nothing like anything you have seen, or experienced and it is by far on the top of my list for the year. A very Excellent film.
There is something Russian Hungarian, Red and the White, about this film or that's just the Polish in me :) Give this film your attention.
I don't really know if this is a review or more of a description of the sheer mouth opening energy that took over the entire audience. Admittedly when you set out to go watch a film about an Albino boy in East Africa, hunted for the color of his skin by witch doctors who make good business out of trading his parts into fabled miracles, well you expect something particular.
Make no mistake about it, this is not an Africa film or AN ISSUE film, this is a global subject, very well hidden and integrated into the surface of this skin. I cannot pin point the moment I fell in, but somewhere in the first ten minutes a sense of real trauma kicked in and I felt like "now I must deal with it". I realized this ride is intense and instead of forcing myself on it I had to let it lead me and well it did - Into the darkest most claustrophobic feeling of isolation, suspicion and being hunted, Then suddenly shaken into the lightest and most beautiful joy of friendship with a ghost like boy called "Salum". The film rattles you from one scene to the other, the cuts are aggressive, the colors the spaces the violence is always kept through this perspective of this boy Alias, played by the incredible Hamisi Bazili. How the hell did they find this Kid?
Mini Spoiler here - My take on this film is that it starts from a dream and a very strong Trauma and the rest of the film you the audience as the main character must find a way to connect to reality with the trauma pounding the drums, non stop. Everyone is out to get you! and at the end, well, another spoiler alert! Thats the choice you must make in which world you wish to stay. THE STORY - (Spoiler Alert) A boy, "Alias", experiences his father's very graphic and brutal death is sent by his mother to the big city under the care of his not very reliable uncle. The uncle is in more trouble then we know and very quickly the city is no different then the bush. Add to that a touch of almost incest and a ghost child narrating, not to mention, witchcraft. All that under the eye of a camera that feels like it is coming from the vortex of the another dimension. Perhaps the camera is a character in itself.
Deshe weaves his way through what would have been a very conventional direct storyline in the most elusive unexpected way and somehow the music, the image and the thoughts of the film all become one. This is nothing like anything you have seen, or experienced and it is by far on the top of my list for the year. A very Excellent film.
There is something Russian Hungarian, Red and the White, about this film or that's just the Polish in me :) Give this film your attention.
Be patient! Past the bad opening lies a great film.
stevegeo-089167 January 2024
The first 30 minutes of this extraordinary film are almost unwatchable. It's full of dark scenes: not just nighttime scenes, they are nighttime scenes poorly lit and poorly photographed. But I'm sure glad I let it play. White Shadow is a great film.
White Shadow is a portal into a world where witches wield real power-a world of poverty and brutality-in the southern hemisphere, on the southeast coast of Africa, in a village in Tanzania.
The film script and dialog are superb. White Shadow also has some beautiful cinematography. Some of the intimate scenes between the children are tender and stunning. The documentary-style handheld camera is powerful.
White Shadow is a portal into a world where witches wield real power-a world of poverty and brutality-in the southern hemisphere, on the southeast coast of Africa, in a village in Tanzania.
The film script and dialog are superb. White Shadow also has some beautiful cinematography. Some of the intimate scenes between the children are tender and stunning. The documentary-style handheld camera is powerful.
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