2013 was widely heralded as a good year for “black” cinema (12 Years a Slave, The Butler, Mandela, Fruitvale Station, and three different black Christmas movies) but how about the indie dramas or documentaries that slipped through the cracks?
War Witch…A young girl in a rural Ugandan village is forced to shoot her parents in the first scene of this movie, and is then made to be a child soldier. “The Great Tiger” is the man making kids do this, and he somehow believes she’s also a “war witch,” a mystic who can help him win the insurgency, and she can indeed see the dead…in between getting sexually assaulted by some of the other soldiers. This movie sounds extraordinarily depressing…and, well…it is. But unlike 12 Years a Slave or Fruitvale Station, there’s not enough depth here to really catapult it from “damn that’s a shame” to searing, unforgettable tragedy. The flights into fantasy felt strange, and he never get deep enough into the lead character’s head. Grade: C
Gimme the Loot…A no-great-shakes indie comedy that pulls a rapid bait-and-switch. It starts off as a film about two young graffiti artists wanting to spray paint the Mets stadium (or something), but they quickly give up on that goal…and the graffiti. The film is only 78 minutes long, but feels ramshackle and aimless. Grade: C-
The Sapphires…A film about Australia’s aborigines or, more specifically, four female cousins who became an R&B group in the 60’s/70’s and were mostly touring war zones in Vietnam. Chris O’Dowd is okay as their manager, but the story’s not quite compelling enough. It’s a nice, pleasant movie, but not a very good one. Grade: C+
Call Me Kuchu…A documentary about Uganda, which just might the most homophobic country on the face of the Earth. The specific focus is on gay rights activist David Kato (who was murdered during the filming of it) and his efforts to overturn an appalling intolerant bill that makes homosexuality criminal and punishable by death. Startling and scary, but David’s humanism and likability only makes his tragic death (and some of the people in Uganda’s celebration of it) more senseless. Grade: B+