War Dance
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Movie Reviews of War Dance
Movie Review: Haunting
Summary: 5 Stars
Imagine that you're nine years old, and your entire family has been wiped out before your eyes by marauding rebels. You're then abducted and forced at gunpoint to slaughter another group of innocents with a garden hoe. Welcome to childhood in war-torn northern Uganda. Set in a refugee camp originally intended for five families and now containing over 50,000 people, "War Dance" presents an unflinching and powerful portrait of a group of orphaned kids who travel to the capital to compete in a nationwide singing and dancing competition. There are scenes in this Oscar-nominated documentary that are so raw and intimate you wonder how filmmakers Fine and Nix ever captured them; one feels uncomfortable and almost ashamed at the sight of a young girl sobbing on her father's grave, begging her Mom to let her "lie down with Daddy." With wrenching sequences like this, the film's well-worn plot device lifted from any number of other successful docs--Motley Group of Kids Travels to the Big City and Triumphs in the Big Competition--seems more than a little forced. It's hard to get into the rhythm of the feel-good rehearsal montage when you've just witnessed the bottomless grief of a traumatized child. Still, the courage and character of these children leaves and indelible impression, and Fine and Nix are to be commended for bringing their plight to a world audience.Movie Review: Will bring tears to your eyes
Summary: 5 Stars
I invited a friend to see this movie at a small theater by my house because she and I both have a heart for Africa. We sat in the empty theater, moved by the stories and weeping during the hard parts.
Shortly after, I left for Tanzania (Africa) and spent 3 months working with orphans and vulnerable children (living with aids / affected by aids). If you haven't experienced African culture, you might not fully understand the families, the children nor the music competition (I saw a comment that talked bad about the families being so harsh).
Africa is torn apart by the aids epidemic, poverty, famine and war. And the the children are left with little to no hope. They realize that their one key to success is education but even that is limited to the rich or sponsored children since "public" school still needs to be paid for.
This documentary does well to showcase how the children of Uganda are affected by this horrible war and how they have such a hope in a music competition so they can be seen as more than children of war.
After watching this documentary, I recommend researching the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), this war, northern Uganda and going to the film makers web page. Documentaries such as this are making changes to a country that needs our help. The more we are aware, the better it will get.
Movie Review: orphan heroes
Summary: 5 Stars
"It's difficult for people to believe our story," says fourteen-year-old Dominic, "but if we don't tell you, you won't know." And so in this powerful documentary some of the 200,000 orphans tell their stories about how the rebel activities of the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda killed thousands, displaced two million people from their ancestral homes into refugee camps, and subjected families to unspeakable atrocities. The film focuses on one "War Zone Displacement Camp" in particular and several of its children from the Patongo primary school who practice to compete in Uganda's annual national music competition in Kampala's National Theater. Of course, when they get to Kampala they know that other children view them not only as poor country bumpkins but as children soldiers. The film deftly switches back and forth between three stories -- graphic descriptions by the children of what they experienced at the hands of the ruthless LRA, their practice for and eventual competition in Kampala, and then daily life in the badly overcrowded displacement camp. "In everything we do, if there's music, life becomes good." Which is a very powerful testimony given the evil these children experienced. In English and Acholi with English subtitles.Movie Review: Richard Close
Summary: 5 Stars
This if a breath taking movie and true to the core. It is not so much about war but how we can recover from war and the people that do the work. I must be be critical of one point that is common to many Africa movies that want a larger audiance. This movie show children and parents in prayer and pastors but it hides the role of Christian missioners in the reconciliation movement in the film. Doing this increase donations and the size of the market, but it is and insult to the hundreds of thousands of good people on the ground risking their lives for these kids every day. In writing my books on Kenya and Zambia I have faced more than one machete to rescue children. A major for that gives these kids strength is the forgiveness that the Christian faith offers them. It is key for their suvival and unjust that we edit it out of films for fundraising purposes. When I wrote like Life Inside the Gospel Rescue Mission I had to wressle with this. Censoring Jesus is not a truthful documentarty technique. In the end we must ask what are we afraid of in documenting the whole truth.
This veideo, Beat the Drum" and "Sometimes in April" are all must sees.
Movie Review: Moving and inspiring documentary
Summary: 5 Stars
War/Dance follows the journey of a school of children from the war zone in Northern Uganda that travel to the national music competition. The film moves from the tragedy of the children's tales of suffering, death and pain to the hope and joy they find in their traditional music and dance. The children have to face horrors beyond what anyone at their young age should have to experience, and yet there are wonderful scenes in which they show they are still children - bragging that they will win the competition, excited about being watched and admired and appreciated. Despite being in a war zone, the children seek to find an identity outside of the suffering and pursue a better future. The documentary has excellent cinematography and music, but also allows the honest words and actions of the children to speak for themselves. I highly recommend that everyone watch this, but also that people take action and not just forget what they have seen. I highly admire the work of the documentary's makers; visit their website at www.shineglobal.org for more information.