I refuse to participate in any "greatest war movie of all time" discussions that don't feature this film at the center of discussion. It's pretty much the only good war movie I've seen, and one of the best movies I've ever seen period.
Directed by Thierno Faty Sow +1
A critically acclaimed, bleak war film.
A Senegalese platoon of soldiers from the French Free Army return from combat and are temporarily held in a military encampment with barbed wire fences and guard towers in the desert. Among them are charismatic Sergeant Diatta, educated in Paris and has a French wife and child, and Pays, a soldier left in a state of shock who can only communicate in guttural screams and grunts.
Camp de Thiaroye is showing in 1 cinema in Berlin - next screening Friday 23 October at 19:00 at Zeughauskino.
Next screenings: Friday 23 October.
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I refuse to participate in any "greatest war movie of all time" discussions that don't feature this film at the center of discussion. It's pretty much the only good war movie I've seen, and one of the best movies I've ever seen period.
a film like this came out in 1988 and people still consider green book progressive for 2018?
It's hard to comment on colonialism without resorting to the obvious: it was a fucking horrible thing that should never have happened. The devaluation of human beings required to view the land they were living in as up for grabs still shocks me. The treatment of them after European and American colonists arrived is a horror the scope of which has never been fully captured. Camp de Thiaroye uses a single incident in the long history of colonialism and contrasts it with the Holocaust in an attempt to make that scope known.It's fair to say this film is a trifle blunt in getting its message across, but I am not inclined to fault it for that. Watching Pays linger on the barbed wire and guard towers as he reconciles his present situation with his past in Buchenwald is a powerful moment that foreshadows how events will play out, regardless of how direct it is. The repetition in dialogue of the amount of money the soldiers are asking for seems almost like a sigil after a while. The frank appraisal of the conditions (bad food, racist provocations, etc.) sometimes do feel a little awkward, but the film is backing them up with its imagery skillfully. We are not simply being told, we are being shown and told.The only thing I knew about this going in was that it was historical fiction about the Thiaroye Massacre, about which I was unfamiliar. It became clear within moments how it would play out, though not wholly in detail. This film creates not suspense but dread as it shows the tirailleurs mutiny over continual mistreatment, letting the white officers' duplicity and callousness taint every minor victory until, at the height of triumph, the guns start firing. It's a moment of frank brutality that still can't capture the scope of horror of colonialism, but it's a reasonable try.February count: 8/28
It follows a platoon of Senegalese soldiers returning from World War II who are detained in a transit camp and face betrayal by the French colonial administration.
It was co-directed by Ousmane Sembène and Thierno Faty Sow in 1988, marking a major milestone in African political cinema.
Yes, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 45th Venice International Film Festival.
