WAR WITCH (A-minus) - This is a simple, beautiful film about a 12-year-old in sub-Saharan Africa who is kidnapped by ragtag anti-government forces, forced to shoot loved ones as an initiation, and then savagely corrupted as just another child soldier who kills to survive.
By age 14, as we learn from the opening scenes before flashing back, young Komona (Rachel Mwanza) is carrying another rebel's child and battling to bury the ghosts that haunt her. Writer/director Kim Nguyen tells a compact story with a hushed intimacy that has you rooting for Komona even though you fear that it might already be too late for her to be redeemed.
Young Mwanza, in real life, was reportedly abandoned by her parents at age 6 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She gives a powerful performance here as an adolescent robbed of her innocence but determined to give meaning to the life inside her.
As horrible as this world is, there is still beauty to be found in nature and in humanity. The images captured by Nguyen and his cinematographer, fellow Canadian Nicolas Bolduc, are simply gorgeous, as is the soundtrack, made up of sweet, jangly guitar ruminations from the collection "Soul of Angola: 1965-1975." It's a captivating 90 minutes.
Komona is granted special treatment among the rebels because she can see the ghosts of the dead and sense the movements of the enemy. Thus, she is deemed the War Witch. This essentially makes her the concubine of the rebel leader. However, she spends a lot of time with another soldier, and the two fall for each other. She makes an impossible demand of him, to prove his love and win her hand, and the middle half-hour of the film is devoted to a rather traditional teen love story.
How this girl reconciles the past and strives to give sustenance to the future becomes, in the final half-hour, the stuff of compelling drama.
MUSEUM HOURS (A-minus) - Laden with symbolism, this heartfelt drama about two strangers meeting in Vienna is a reminder to pause and appreciate the little details -- in the handiwork of Mother Nature and of man.
Anne (the singer Mary Margaret O'Hara) is called to Austria as the default relative of her cousin, who has fallen into a coma. Because her funds are limited (she has to borrow money just for the airfare) Anne tours Vienna on the cheap during her down time. Her low-tech adventures take her to the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum, where she meets kind, sweet, contemplative Johann (the craggy Bobby Sommer).
The two begin to hang out together, with Johann offering his translation services to make it easier to deal with doctors by phone. Anne has quiet moments with her cousin, talking to her and singing to her. At other times, Anne is a real-time traveler, soaking up the sights and sounds of the city at a stroll. Jem Cohen's camera slows down to match her pace. Inside the museum, he lingers over paintings or offers snapshots of detail, the kind of detail that might take you half a dozen viewings to notice.
Birds are featured prominently. Cohen returns again and again to shots of birds. Anne's song to her cousin is about the birds singing. To me, the avian connection serves as the timeless link between modern man and those artists and peasants of the middle ages. Birds live the same type of existence they have for centuries; Cohen reminds us that, for humans, life has sped up impossibly during that time, and the challenge to Anne and Johann is to find the slow lane. (Of course, the cousin in a coma has stopped time completely; what are we to make of that?)
Cohen, a veteran documentary maker, mixes that genre with drama here, to create a deep sense of realism. We are treated to a mini-lecture by a museum docent about the 16th century artist Peter Bruegel; his piece "Hunters in the Snow" (which apparently has a Tarkovsky connection) and others celebrating peasant life are featured prominently.
Cohen has crafted a valentine to Vienna, somehow making it look both grimy and elegant at the same time. His collection of images, both inside and outside of the museum, suggest improvisational filmmaking; its own found art. It's conceivable that Cohen had a scrap of a story, shot footage, and created this movie in the editing room. Then again, maybe he mapped it out in advance exactly how it played out.
And that's the true genius of "Museum Hours." It invites you into the filmmaking process. Like fine art, it demands your gaze and welcomes your interpretation. While it falls short of being a masterpiece, it's an elegant work that lingers in the mind and heart.
Bonus Track
Artur Nunes, "Kisua Ki Ngui Fua," from the "Soul of Angola" collection:
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