1. The child soldiers lost their families in the war. They never had time to sort out the huge fear of seeing their relatives killed, and they kept running for their lives. However, when they were finally taken in by anti-government guerrillas, they felt a touch of home. The guerrillas provided them with a temporary spiritual home—a purpose in life and a sense of belonging. This is something that previous similar films have not explored.
2. Mentioned the systemic causes of civil wars in West African countries (I think this is alluding to Congo, Sudan). When the commander went to see the commander-in-chief, there was a nervous Chinese sitting next to him, and then another white man. Basically this is the heart of the African civil war, the brutality of the war on the other side contrasted with the mediocrity here. Just like the documentary "Darwin's Nightmare", these savagery is driven by capital, and capital is imported into weapons in exchange for resources. As "The Lord of War" said, the countries that export the most weapons in the world are the five permanent members of the United Nations.
3. The protagonist Abu is eager to find his mother and go home, but when he comes to the capital, he is afraid to find his mother. Because he couldn't face his mother, he couldn't face what he had done. But he did not have such a meticulous heart, and he angrily killed the woman who confessed his mistake. This is also the inner description of the child soldier that runs through the entire film, which is connected to the heart of the returning American soldier, and expresses the ultimate destruction of the heart of anyone. However, this point has also been bypassed.
4. The inner description of the commander. The commander is a symbol, he represents an emotion, the rage of poverty and looting that drives the ongoing civil war in Africa. When he came to the end, he kept saying, "You will come to me, when you are hungry, when you can't find a job." But his image can actually be more complicated. The film starts at the beginning and uses it well. The actor came to perform, but in the end it was simply evaluated as a demon.
5. The beautiful emotions of human beings - this is what touched me several times in this film. The beautiful scenery, the wonderful father and the lovely older brother disappeared in an instant. In the terrifying march, still found a beautiful sustenance - Hercules. Abu walked on his back for a long time until he died. The commander infected the soldiers with African dance, which is a kind of "dancing god", but it combines revolution and art to make people understand what is "cultural revolution". And it is not attributed to the negative, the same beginning people dance in the church complement each other. This always reminds me of the Chinese "singing a red song". Red songs are first sung because they are beautiful. This romantic song is connected with passion to achieve a kind of beauty under which killing and barbarism have been carried out.
The above points are some very shiny pebbles, shining in the yellow sand of the overall plot, sometimes appearing and sometimes submerged. Sometimes applauded, sometimes distressed. There are also places intended to use magic realism that immediately reminded me of Beasts of the South - a great movie - Abu smoking cocaine and seeing his ancestors fighting alongside him as if they were the souls of dead people Look at yourself and the whole world turns red, which is also a good attempt, but only once. Every so often, he stops talking.
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