Thursday, March 27, 2008
100 Days
This film reminded me of the message that Hotel Rwanda portrayed, and how it depicted the Rwandan Genocide. Though 100 Days focuses on a different aspect on the horrific Rwandan Genocide. 100 Days begins with a young couple showing how much love they have for each other. We see here in the first scenes how everything is happy and peaceful; there is no suggestion of the horrible acts that are to follow. We then see another couple but they are not expressing their love to one another but we see two men expressing their hatred for another group of people and how they plan to eliminate them. This film is frightful as all the other films that have made to depict the Rwandan Genocide. I can’t understand why these people had to be killed; there is no real reason for the mass murder of any people. This film shows us how the Hutus have suffered and how they finally decide that enough is enough. Nick Hughes portrays the actions of not only the Hutus but of the Tutsis as well. He also follows a family and the problems this family encounters and suffers throughout the Rwandan Genocide. This film personalizes the genocide and it provides us with a detailed look at what happened. What I enjoyed most about the film was the cinematography, the scenes were very real like, and it almost felt like a documentary. My favorite shot was where the Belgian soldiers were asked to leave and as a result they allow the Hutus to kill the Tutsis. The soldiers were put there to protect the Tutsis but they abandoned that order due to their repulsion with what the system they were a part of.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Faat Kine
Faat Kine is a film that brings us face to face with the reality of the politically, economically, and morally corrupt social fabric of the society that is depicted in this film. Ousmane Sembene’s story is about the changing roles of women in Senegalese society, and in this sense, Faat Kine could be considered as a significant film of what “feminism” could mean in 21st-century Africa.
In the opening scenes we see many women carrying water buckets and babies strapped to their backs as they cross paved avenues with the noises and fumes of old-fashioned public transportation and the impressive sights of European luxury cars. Then we see a surprising sight: a dusty open space where starving cattle munch on anything they can find. New villas with manicured lawns shelter the upper class, the middlemen and managers of capitalist interests who have turned their backs on the crumbling poor houses where their neighbors dwell. While begging and corruption become accepted ways of life, AIDS and pollution reap millions. The towering buildings and monuments are shown to emphasize the globalized ideas that are arrogantly towering above the decaying city. These are clearly indications of the city’s deteriorating post-colonial economic, social, and cultural policies.
Faat Kine is not a fairy tale; it is though entertaining and funny at times. From the first scene to its happy ending, the cruel details that document and animate Kine’s private and public life in a society pummeled by forces of the past and those of modernity. Faat Kine could be a film about women in a world of men or about a post-colonial time when many hesitate at the turning point of change and conservatism. The utopia imagined in Faat Kine is a future about hope and the struggle against hopelessness. Faat Kine is in fact a milestone in propelling the actuality in Africa toward an ideal of freedom earned and enjoyed by both women ans men.
In the opening scenes we see many women carrying water buckets and babies strapped to their backs as they cross paved avenues with the noises and fumes of old-fashioned public transportation and the impressive sights of European luxury cars. Then we see a surprising sight: a dusty open space where starving cattle munch on anything they can find. New villas with manicured lawns shelter the upper class, the middlemen and managers of capitalist interests who have turned their backs on the crumbling poor houses where their neighbors dwell. While begging and corruption become accepted ways of life, AIDS and pollution reap millions. The towering buildings and monuments are shown to emphasize the globalized ideas that are arrogantly towering above the decaying city. These are clearly indications of the city’s deteriorating post-colonial economic, social, and cultural policies.
Faat Kine is not a fairy tale; it is though entertaining and funny at times. From the first scene to its happy ending, the cruel details that document and animate Kine’s private and public life in a society pummeled by forces of the past and those of modernity. Faat Kine could be a film about women in a world of men or about a post-colonial time when many hesitate at the turning point of change and conservatism. The utopia imagined in Faat Kine is a future about hope and the struggle against hopelessness. Faat Kine is in fact a milestone in propelling the actuality in Africa toward an ideal of freedom earned and enjoyed by both women ans men.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
