Review of Attack on Darfur (2009) by Dutch V — 16 Mar 2011

Just because a movie deals with a subject such as this, doesn't automatically warrant it being a good movie. Furthermore, just because I think this movie sucks it does not mean that I think what happened in Sudan was acceptable. This movie was way too melodramatic for it to be good. Now if this movie didn't have brutal depictions of the attack it would have had zero effect at all. Now it did have incredibly brutal depictions of the attack and that was one of the few positives of the movie. Now if it wasn't for the next two reasons the movie would have been okay. Not good, but okay. However, because of the two reasons I am about to give, it sucks.

The camera work is some of the worst I have seen. Now I know that hand held camera work serves some purpose, but it was like watching a home movie of dad filming a baseball game. Shaky, shaky, shaky, and every damn image is never still and the audience can't focus on it. If there was a purpose of having it like that I would be more understanding and possible appreciative of it. However, it is supposed to be this gripping, dramatic, painful story, but you can't focus on anything so how the hell are you supposed to feel anything when you can't see anything.

This is only exacerbated by possibly the worst edit job I have seen. I don't think there is a shot longer than 30 seconds in the whole movie. Now I know that short shots can be effective, and I know that long drawn out shots are not necessarily the best choice either. The fact is, is that the camera is so shaky and you're trying to focus and then it cuts away to another shaky image. This whole movie is just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, extreme closeup, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, extreme closeup, and more damn cuts. If the shaky camera doesn't make you sick the constant shift of images will. In fact this movie left me feeling sick and not because of their portrayal of the attack, but rather because I was being bombarded with constantly changing shaky images that I could never focus on.

This movie sucks and is not worth the time. The events depicted are something that have been and continued to be addressed, but unfortunately for this film all it doesn't do a good job. Don't watch it.