Boo'd Diamond
Two years ago, I stumbled upon the FESPACO festival, arriving in Ouaga just as the festival opened, purely by coincidence. I was oblivious in the way that most tourists are -- there was a stampede at the opening ceremonies and two people were trampled to death; I only learned this at this year's festival -- and really enjoyed the event, having no expectations of it. I thought it was romantic to sit under the stars, watching African films in Africa surrounded by Africans.
This year, we waited two hours in line just to drop off our accreditation forms. Schedules and catalogues became as scarce as cold water, the festival hadn't printed enough and ran out only a day into the seven-day event. Some film-goers picked up their $25 passes for free. A couple times we made it to the theatre before the film, which would arrive in the arms of an usher riding on the back of a moped. We missed the opening few minutes of "Africa Paradis" because there guy with the keys to the box office hadn't shown up and there was no one to sell tickets.
Still, we saw some amazing films and had a very decadent week of sleeping in air conditioning, washing in hot water, swanning about watching movies and eating pizza at every opportunity.
The winner, Ezra, was a picture about child soldiers, shot in Rwanda but ostensibly about Sierra Leone. My favourite, Juju Factory, was about Congolese living in Belgium. I cried like a baby at the end of Tsotsi -- man, that kid can act! We both loved "Shoot the Messenger," a highly controversial BBC film about black stereotypes, and a documentary about the Jonestown massacre, the "don't drink the Kool-aid" cult of the 1970s. We had long discussions over "The Mother's House," a documentary following an 11-year-old girl and her HIV-positive mother while they lived for four years in the grandmother's house. The girl spirals downward under the eye of the camera, cutting herself and getting hooked on drugs.
But, secretly, I think we were most looking forward to Blood Diamond and Last King of Scotland, the Hollywood contributions to Africa's Cannes. To be considered for competition, a film must have a director with an African passport, so neither of these films were fighting for the Golden Stallion. But they were undoubtedly the most popular films of the festival, with line-ups that started an hour before the film and stretched around the block.
Unfortunately, both were dubbed in French, so we didn't stay for Last King. Still, I caught enough of Blood Diamond -- mislabelled as Bood Diamond in the program -- to know that I didn't like it.
In truth, I was bound to hate it. I've got that uppity self-righteous thing going on about Africa and of course, feel very strongly that no film with Leonardo DiCaprio in it could ever capture the complexities of an African issue. And there's the smokin' Jennifer Connolly as journalist character, that was bound to raise the hackles, what with the blouse unbuttoned to here and the "what wouldn't I do for a story?" arc to the storyline. (And the god-awful dialogue, perhaps made worse by the French translation, I dunno, but who says with a straight face: "I prefer complex situations.") There is a moment where, confronted by supposed Karamajor fighters armed to the teeth and looking like fierce little Dogon trolls covered in fetishes, Connolly brashly pushes forward and asks for a picture. She squeezes them together and frames them up as one of them claims her for his wife. I was immediately annoyed. But upon further reflection, I decided this is actually an interesting tactic and may have to try it out, should I ever be in the presence of angry Keebler elves.
Still, there is the siege of Freetown, which is as exhilarating as the first 20 minutes of Ezra, three times as bloody and probably not far off. And the right-on moment at a rebel checkpoint, when two little 10-year-olds shoot a patronizing social worker in the head when he tries to rationalize with them as though they were children.
But there is also a moment where they drive on the LEFT, which is just stupid Edward Zwick, and a moment where, looking wistfully out the window, Connolly spies a cheetah running alongside the media bus. A media bus? A cheetah? People, please. And the shot of Jack Dawson at the end -- I pretty sure he was channeling Jack Dawson -- with the elephants munching on the savannah below. Elephants? Savannah? Man, Mozambique is pretty, but Sierra Leone is gorgeous in its own right (that's right, Zwick. RIGHT!) and it doesn't look like Mozambique. There are few elephants and hardly any savannah.
Boo'd Diamond wasn't much of a misprint afterall.
This year, we waited two hours in line just to drop off our accreditation forms. Schedules and catalogues became as scarce as cold water, the festival hadn't printed enough and ran out only a day into the seven-day event. Some film-goers picked up their $25 passes for free. A couple times we made it to the theatre before the film, which would arrive in the arms of an usher riding on the back of a moped. We missed the opening few minutes of "Africa Paradis" because there guy with the keys to the box office hadn't shown up and there was no one to sell tickets.
Still, we saw some amazing films and had a very decadent week of sleeping in air conditioning, washing in hot water, swanning about watching movies and eating pizza at every opportunity.
The winner, Ezra, was a picture about child soldiers, shot in Rwanda but ostensibly about Sierra Leone. My favourite, Juju Factory, was about Congolese living in Belgium. I cried like a baby at the end of Tsotsi -- man, that kid can act! We both loved "Shoot the Messenger," a highly controversial BBC film about black stereotypes, and a documentary about the Jonestown massacre, the "don't drink the Kool-aid" cult of the 1970s. We had long discussions over "The Mother's House," a documentary following an 11-year-old girl and her HIV-positive mother while they lived for four years in the grandmother's house. The girl spirals downward under the eye of the camera, cutting herself and getting hooked on drugs.
But, secretly, I think we were most looking forward to Blood Diamond and Last King of Scotland, the Hollywood contributions to Africa's Cannes. To be considered for competition, a film must have a director with an African passport, so neither of these films were fighting for the Golden Stallion. But they were undoubtedly the most popular films of the festival, with line-ups that started an hour before the film and stretched around the block.
Unfortunately, both were dubbed in French, so we didn't stay for Last King. Still, I caught enough of Blood Diamond -- mislabelled as Bood Diamond in the program -- to know that I didn't like it.
In truth, I was bound to hate it. I've got that uppity self-righteous thing going on about Africa and of course, feel very strongly that no film with Leonardo DiCaprio in it could ever capture the complexities of an African issue. And there's the smokin' Jennifer Connolly as journalist character, that was bound to raise the hackles, what with the blouse unbuttoned to here and the "what wouldn't I do for a story?" arc to the storyline. (And the god-awful dialogue, perhaps made worse by the French translation, I dunno, but who says with a straight face: "I prefer complex situations.") There is a moment where, confronted by supposed Karamajor fighters armed to the teeth and looking like fierce little Dogon trolls covered in fetishes, Connolly brashly pushes forward and asks for a picture. She squeezes them together and frames them up as one of them claims her for his wife. I was immediately annoyed. But upon further reflection, I decided this is actually an interesting tactic and may have to try it out, should I ever be in the presence of angry Keebler elves.
Still, there is the siege of Freetown, which is as exhilarating as the first 20 minutes of Ezra, three times as bloody and probably not far off. And the right-on moment at a rebel checkpoint, when two little 10-year-olds shoot a patronizing social worker in the head when he tries to rationalize with them as though they were children.
But there is also a moment where they drive on the LEFT, which is just stupid Edward Zwick, and a moment where, looking wistfully out the window, Connolly spies a cheetah running alongside the media bus. A media bus? A cheetah? People, please. And the shot of Jack Dawson at the end -- I pretty sure he was channeling Jack Dawson -- with the elephants munching on the savannah below. Elephants? Savannah? Man, Mozambique is pretty, but Sierra Leone is gorgeous in its own right (that's right, Zwick. RIGHT!) and it doesn't look like Mozambique. There are few elephants and hardly any savannah.
Boo'd Diamond wasn't much of a misprint afterall.
posted by Palmer in Africa at 5:48 AM
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