Review of War Witch (2012) by Jackson O — 21 Dec 2012

Rebelle didn't turn out to be nearly as difficult to watch as I had anticipated it would be. I don't know if the subject matter being easier to watch worked in the film's favour or not. Film being a visual medium it's not always a good strategy for a director to make their audience constantly want to look away from what was put in front of the camera, but in this case I can't help but feel it somehow watered down the material.

There are very few movies about child soldiers that aren't documentaries because the subject matter is very delicate. Every now and then Hollywood will release a movie such as Blood Diamond which, while not about child soldiers, deals with the diamond mines and the graphic details of what has happened far to many times, but such a film is a risk for a studio because, even though there's no such thing as bad publicity, they obviously don't want to make anything which could be viewed as in any way insensitive or even offensive. It's not good for business. This is why Canadian director Kim Nguyen decided to tell the story of his film, Rebelle, without the help of a studio and I'm very divided about the final product.

Rebelle (or War Witch as it will likely be released in other countries) is the Canadian submission for Best Foreign Language Film for next year's Academy Awards, and it tells the story of a girl who probably wouldn't like being told about luck because of how much of the wrong kind she has. This girl is Komona (Rachel Mwanza) a barely-twelve-year-old who lives in a small village by the seaside in sub-Saharan Africa (it's never specifically mentioned what country but I know the film was shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo). Her village is raided by rebels and she is forced to kill her parents and become a child-soldier for the rebels with the other children that are kidnapped. Komona earns a special place among these rebels because of her unique reactions while drinking the "magic milk". It allows her to see the souls of the dead.

This is an interesting story from so many aspects. Apart from the fact that we're seeing a story like this from the perspective of someone that isn't an American or European trying to help out in African, but from someone living in the situation, it's a story of someone who is put through this hell but manages to climb the hierarchy to some degree. Her position amongst the rebels allows us to see her not as brutally treated as one would respect is an effective way of easing the audience in the story and also is a good story in and of itself.

Because Komona sees the dead, it also allows for some spectacular visuals. The dead are shown as men with body makeup which resembles stone and rock. They are framed as something most of us aren't used to and could easily be frightened of, allowing the idea of them being dead combined with what the audience sees to create something which effectively creates tone.

The film starts off strong and shows itself going into very interesting directions until we reach the middle act. It is this middle act that kills the momentum the film had and despite the story picking up afterwards, it never entirely recovers. This is where the film becomes a romance. Komona befriends the rebel called Magicien (Serge Kanyinda) and he falls in love with Komona, even asking to marry her. What makes this difficult for the audience to accept is that we know Komona is twelve and Magicien looks to be sixteen (for the record, his age is never given). A four year age gap is very common for adult relationships. Finding out someone who's thirty is dating someone twenty-six sounds normal to us, but Komona is clearly not an adult and four years to either her or Magicien means much more.

I understand that I'm a privileged westerner judging a culture which is not my own and that's something I've repeatedly spoken against for most cases, but this romance which is supposed to help ease the audience and calm them from the war Komona is a part of not only outlines where the film runs out of steam, but is very uncomfortable to watch because of the age of this romance. It is that romance which caused me to become disengaged from the film throughout the middle and I could only muster up so much interest for the much better final third after frankly dull yet somehow also creepy romance.

It's a shame for the film's middle because otherwise Nguyan would've made a terrific movie. It has an interesting character who is easy to care about without the film being manipulative, its visual experiments pay off, and a story most western audiences aren't exposed to (whether wilfully or otherwise) is one which is very watchable. Nugyan understands that the subject of child soldiers is one which many audiences love to turn a blind eye towards and makes many attempts to ease the audience in, some being more effective than others, but when he tells the story we see that it's being told by an interesting talent.