War Witch

Synopsis: In an unnamed African country, rebels raid a village and abduct Komona (Rachel Mwanza), forcing her into the life of a child soldier. When she starts having visions of the dead that presage attacks by government forces, she's selected to become the war witch of the rebel leader Grand Tiger (Mizinga Mwinga).

You might not want to see this film. It opens with a child being handed a machine gun and told to murder her parents. She refuses and is told they'll be cut up with machetes unless she complies. They look lovingly at her and tell her to do it. And then she does. The horrors of war are only multiplied from this starting point, which does a remarkable job of showing both the war, and the semi-passive acceptance of this seemingly eternal state by the civilian population. The two just co-exist side by side, and the soldiers aren't so much feared as just ignored or avoided.

But there are other reasons you might not want to see this film. As Komona starts to see her visions of the dead, the film drifts into magic realism territory. This I found created a level of distance between the horrors of what was taking place and the emotional affect on the audience. I'm not sure if I'm being unfair on the film, asking it to burrow into my skull a bit more given the seriousness of the subject matter, or missing the point of the more lyrical take on some seriously awful events.

But it's not all horror and bloodshed and elegantly framed scenes of ghostly men and women walking to their afterlife. There's also a cute love story as a young soldier named Magician (Serge Kanyinda) becomes smitten with Komona and the two escape from Grand Tiger and attempt to live normal lives. Of course it's going to end tragically, but much of the middle section of the film is occupied with the comic tale of Magician attempting to obtain an impossibly rare animal in order to marry Komona.  As a romance it actually works very well, even if you know it can't possibly last.

I'm ambivalent about this film. It's a solidly told story, but the tone versus the subject matter left me feeling the balance wasn't entirely right. It's proscriptive to say that you cannot attempt lyricism in a film about the atrocities of war, but it's very hard to get right. There are times when War Witch succeeds, but there are times where it fails as well. I'm still trying to decide how often it does the former and how often the latter.

 

 

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