War/Dance
Cynically, I thought War/Dance would be one of those documentaries that is nominated just by virtue of being about Africa (see also: Holocaust). It focuses on a group of Acholi tribe primary school children in war-torn northern Uganda who get to compete in the National Music Competition of 2005. The film highlights the group as a whole, and three children in particular, Nancy, Dominic, and Rose. War/Dance focuses on their personal experiences as a cross-section of those of all the Acholi children.
I don’t want to reveal their histories because I really hope you will find a chance to see it for yourself. At some point, all three of them are filmed from behind, gazing out over a key location in their stories. You are looking at what they are seeing in their mind’s eye, now just a non-descript scrap of land. After seeing them there, knowing what happened on that patch of grass to someone so young, so hard and yet still so breakable, it is impossible not to define them by that experience. War/Dance then sets out to gently, inspiringly show you that none of these children should be defined by the horrors of war that surrounds them. They are a tribe, a people who are separate from the rebellion ripping their world apart. They find their true selves again through the musical outlets explored in the competition.
The presentation of War/Dance plays more like a poem than a traditional documentary. Gone is the “you are there” camerawork that thrusts you into the story, highlighting your outsider status. Instead we have carefully framed and occasionally composed shots (like the aforementioned back views) which turn the power over to the subject, rather than on the documentarian. It’s not voyeuristic; they are calling the camera to them. Early on, a child says that they have to tell us the story or else we would not hear it. This is a film presented as their eloquence, not a filmmaker’s take.
Our narrative zags between the three individual stories and the preparation for the competition. By the time these rural displacement zone kids hit Kampala, we are so attuned to their simple world that this million-plus metropolis seems impossibly grand and modern. They confront cruel, unfair prejudices where one would hope pity instead would dwell. They are bet against but still transported by their art in a way no well-fed child of a two-parent household could be transported. They have to compete flawlessly in eight categories just to be respected as worthy competitors, and I have to say, I was moved to tears by the end of this movie.
Directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine (Sean was also the director of photography) have created a truly beautiful tribute to the redemptive powers of art, music, and dance, and the insidious destructiveness that trickles down in war to the most innocent of victims. Please see it.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 12/14/07 (limited)
Time in minutes 105
Director Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
Studio ThinkFilm
