Tag: War Witch

Foreign Film Week: ‘War Witch’: Finally, a Movie About Africa Without the Cute White Movie Star

Guest post written by Atima Omara-Alwala.
So if something happens somewhere in Africa, and a white person is not there, do people hear it? well, according to Hollywood at least, no. There is an obsessive need in Western films to legitimize the African story and life through the existence of a major white character in the movie like The Last King of Scotland with James McAvoy or Blood Diamond with Leonardo DiCaprio, or even the The Constant Gardener with Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes. These movies attempt to chronicle the horror of civil war or corruption that leads to major conflict in African nations. As the daughter of African immigrants who both lived their lives in a war torn country, I am grateful these stories are even being told but it’s a shame that the existence of attractive white movie stars is necessary to tell the story. Even more the reason, War Witch pleasantly surprised me. War Witch is a story from the perspective of one young African girl’s journey to reclaim her life in the face of war and sexual assault.
Primarily filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, War Witch is a 2012 Canadian drama film written and directed by Kim Nguyen. According to Canadian news The Globe & the Mail, Nguyen himself part Vietnamese and French was inspired by a Burmese story he read about child soldiers. Nguyen’s inspiration became War Witch. The story of a 12 year old Komona (Rachel Mwanza) who lives in a rural village in Africa when civil war in her country interrupts her childhood. Rebel forces invade her village, in a very painful scene, Komona’s induction into warfare is choosing between shooting her own parents (by the orders of the rebel commander) or watching them die a painful death at the hands of a machete. The scene is already heart wrenching but it becomes even more so when her parents say to her soothingly, “it’s okay” if she shoots them. After she kills them, she is taken from the only home she’s ever known to become one of rebel forces many child soldiers. 
The film walks you through what life is life as a child soldier with rebel forces: waging guerilla warfare at any given moment, sleeping in the woods, eating rations. Komona adjusts to her new existence with a depressed and stunned silence. A fellow child soldier and albino boy named Magicien (Serge Kanyinda) befriends her and occasionally sneaks her food through their journey.
Aided by “magic milk” or a hallucinogen from a tree sap, that Magician finds for his fellow child soldiers to drink. Komona begins to see her parents and the ghosts of others killed by rebel forces who tell her how to avoid surprise attacks. She becomes so good at predicting surprise attacks she becomes the prized “war witch” to the rebel forces and particularly the “Great Tiger” the leader of the rebel forces played by (Mizinga Mwinga). In an interesting twist, on an attack gone awry one day, Magician convinces Komona to leave the rebel forces with him, confessing his love for her and desire to marry her.

What I love is despite what life has thrown at her Komona is a determined girl. While clearly drawn to Magicien, she refuses to marry him unless he can find a white rooster, which in her culture her father said, “when a man can find a white rooster, he can marry you”. Probably between her desperation to cling to family traditions, and to set some standards for herself she sends Magicien on what is a hilarious rooster chase (and a much needed lull from the horrors of war). Even though she finally consents, to marrying him without the white rooster (as he has become family to her while on the run), Magicien remains determined to find a white rooster, to prove he is worthy of her, which he does.

 Afterwards, Komona and Magicien marry and they arrive at Magicien’s Uncle’s home. Magicien’s Uncle is called “Boucher” which is French for “butcher”. Boucher (Ralph Prosper) cuts meat for a living. It is learned the Boucher watched his entire family being butchered by a machete. Boucher’s trauma from watching his family cut to pieces is so strong he needs an empty pail next to him while he cuts animal meat, so he can vomit in pail due to the memories. This shared trauma bonds him and Magicien and Komona together like a family. And for a time, Komona is happy.

An abrupt turn of tragic events places Komona back in the hands of rebel forces and this time becomes the sex slave of the rebel commander. Komona is barely able to take it upon learning she’s pregnant as a result of continuous rape and exacts an excruciating painful revenge on her assaulter.
The rest of the movie focuses on her life post her second escape from the rebel forces. She returns to stay with Magicien’s Uncle, Boucher. Like Boucher she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. But they live in a world where rape is not even discussed (let along counseling services provided), and post-traumatic stress disorder is even less understood, Komona wrestles emotionally for peace. She sees a priestess to atone for her murders of countless people including her parents. The ghosts of her parents still haunt her dreams and she has regular nightmares of being attacked. And on top of everything else, she grapples with the expected anger and horror of being pregnant by her rapist. This is a lot to deal with for a woman of any age let along a young girl like Komona.

Why do I love this movie? It is a Western film of a civil war in an African nation told through the eyes of not just the Africans living through it, but through an African girl living the trauma and grappling with resolution for herself. Director Kim Nguyen came up against challenges in the film industry because of this take. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Nguyen said: “I had brutal answers that would tell me a Black main actor doesn’t sell.” This makes it even more outstanding that War Witch not only swept, Jutra, the Quebec film awards but was a contender for the Golden Bear (equivalent of Best Film) at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in February 2012. For her work, Rachel Mwanza won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin festival and Best Actress at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. War Witch also received the much coveted Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film of 2012.
It is amazing that for such an award-winning film, War Witch is not legitimized through the presence of a white European spectator (like in all the previously aforementioned Western films) who observes the tragedy and participates in what can only be called self-flagellation about why they can’t be a better “Great White Hope” for the poor Africans.
Another reason I love this movie? The men in Komona’s life do no legitimize her either. It is Komona’s journey alone, on her own defined terms, to redefine her life when for so long it was defined by her captors and everyone around her. It is also her journey to womanhood. It is interesting how Komona reaches some peace finally at the end of the movie, but the viewer is secure in knowing that it is her resolution and no one else’s.

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Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on 8 federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment & leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.

2013 Oscar Week: A Thorn Like a Rose: War Witch (Rebelle)

Guest post written by Emily Campbell.

If you reel off its vital stats, War Witch sounds like a shoo-in for an Oscar.

It tackles the delicate topic of African child soldiers and was filmed entirely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Its main character is a girl who bravely forges forward even though her life has more obstacles than The Hunger Games.
It stars a leading actress who grew up on the streets of Kinshasa and was cast at the age of 15.
It’s in French.
So why has it slipped under the radar?
After hosting an impromptu watch party, I posed the question to a few friends. “It’s because it’s Canadian. That and there are no white people,” one said.
“There are if you count the albino guy,” another countered, unwittingly opening a whole new can of worms.
Eventually the discussion culminated in a long, detailed dissection of the official Oscar nominees and it was concluded that, since there were already Best Picture nominations for a French language film (Amour) and two films about a young people of color overcoming adversity (Beasts of the Southern Wild and Life of Pi), there just weren’t any bases left for War Witch to cover. Despite being comprised of components that typically make the Academy salivate left and right, War Witch is nominated in only one category: Best Foreign Film, otherwise known as that part of the Oscars dedicated to movies only a handful of people have actually seen and several handfuls of people will inevitably decide to see but still probably never get around to it.
War Witch (2012) poster
Canada’s seventh nominee in this category, War Witch begins with a seemingly innocent narrative hook: the voiceover of a woman speaking to her unborn child. The camera pans through a Congolese village, where the residents live in houses constructed of everything from towels to tarpaulins and wear sandals made of plastic water bottles. Inside one of these ramshackle houses, a girl sits patiently while her mother braids her hair.
Within two minutes, everything takes a turn for the decidedly less innocent and never looks back.
It turns out the girl and the narrator are one and the same: Komona, age 12, is abducted from her village by rebel soldiers along with a handful of other children. In order to ensure the loyalty of their new recruits, the rebels eliminate any other contenders and waste no time in doing so, putting an AK-47 in Komona’s hands and instructing her to kill her parents.
“This is your mother,” her kidnappers say, passing around sticks for the children to practice gun-handling. “This is your father. Respect your guns. They’re your new mother and father.”
As a member of the Great Tiger’s rebel army, Komona is trained to do battle against the government alongside other kidnapped children. What sets her apart from them is her ability to see visions after drinking the “magic milk” from a certain tree—a gift that leads to her foreseeing and surviving a government attack. Ultimately, Komona’s visions catch the attention of the Great Tiger himself and, at age 13, she is anointed his personal war witch.
Throughout the course of the film, Komona’s voiceover continues narrating her story to her child. “Listen good when I talk to you because it’s very important that you know what I did before you come out of my belly,” she tells it. “Because when you come out, I don’t know if God will give me the strength to love you.”
War Witch delivers its share of chilling lines, such as Komona calmly explaining that she sees fallen soldiers not as dead bodies but as walking ghosts, or how a local butcher always keeps a pail at hand since every slice of his machete reminds him of what happened to his family and makes him want to vomit. But interspersed with the grimness are moments of levity. At one point, the child soldiers are watching a movie on a bus, yelling and clapping like kids on a school trip. At another, after Komona’s friend Magicien informs her it’s only a matter of time before her visions are faulty and the Great Tiger has her executed like the three witches before her, they flee the army together and Komona accepts his proposal of marriage. However, this is only after she requests that Magicien first bring her a white rooster (which her father once told her is the hardest thing to find in the country), a challenge he takes very seriously.
The brainchild of Montreal director Kim Nguyen, War Witch (billed as Rebelle in French) was filmed entirely in Kinshasa, after Nguyen had spent the past decade researching the plight of child soldiers in central Africa. “I learned that there are actually more women child soldiers than men,” he said, “which was surprising. What’s tragic, of course, is that they’re used as sexual slaves.”
Rachel Mwanza, who stars as Komona, has already racked up Best Actress awards from the Berlin Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Vancouver Film Critics Circle. She and Serge Kanyinda, who plays Magicien, have earned respective nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards. “This character is ten-dimensional,” Nguyen has said of Mwanza’s portrayal of Komona. “She’s a child but she’s an adult, she’s a killer and a victim, she’s a mother but she’s a child. You cannot imagine a more paradoxical figure.” But, as he relayed during a TIFF interview, War Witch’s accolades are far more an exception than a rule: “I had brutal answers that would tell me a Black main actor doesn’t sell.”
In only ninety minutes, War Witch packs a thousand punches. Komona is abducted at 12, a renowned war witch by 13, and pregnant by 14. Her loved ones are snatched away with ruthless precision and her time as a soldier leaves its marks in the form of Stockholm syndrome, post-traumatic stress, and an unborn child. Her superiors beat her, and even Magicien and his protective talismans can only prevent so much harm. The ghosts of her parents give her nightmares, urging her to return to her village and bury them. Inevitably, she becomes a product of her environment, learning to kill or be killed. This comes to a head during one especially harrowing scene wherein she becomes a “poisoned rose” in an effort to kill her commanding officer.
But War Witch is more than just atrocity layered on top of atrocity. There are allies: for a time, Magicien and Komona take shelter with Macigien’s uncle, who abhors the war and provides a safe haven. There’s ingenuity: in one of the film’s lighter moments, Macigien throws himself against the side of a passing van and kicks up a fuss about being injured until the bewildered driver quickly leaves him some money and speeds away. And there’s hope: Komona’s resilience leads to her turning on her commanders multiple times, with eventual success, and stubbornly seeking closure that seems forever just out of reach. 
And yet, it’s a Canadian film. No Canadian film has ever won Best Picture and only one (2003’s The Barbarian Invasions) has won Best Foreign Film. Only three Canadian actresses and one African actress have nabbed the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. The Academy has also been known to neglect giving credit where it’s due, a fact that has even more unfortunate ramifications regarding actors of color. Black actresses have been nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role a mere ten times, with Halle Berry’s 2001 turn in Monster’s Ball resulting in the solitary win. As noted in a study titled “Not Quite a Breakthrough: The Oscars and Actors of Color, 2002-2012,” no winner in any Oscar category has ever been Latino, Asian American, or Native American. More recently, Life of Pi’s Suraj Sharma, who carried the entire film by acting opposite a bluescreen and lost 20% of his body weight for the role and is only 17 years old, was passed over for a nomination although the film itself garnered eleven of them.
Actor Rachel Mwanza
As noted by Jorge Rivas in his 2012 article, an overwhelming majority of the Academy consists of white men. Rachel Mwanza, pictured above with the Silver Bear she won at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, was the first African woman to do so. Mwanza is currently slated to star in the upcoming Marc-Henri Wajnberg-directed drama Kinshasa Kids.
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Emily Campbell has taught English on three continents, been involved with dubious theatrical productions on four, and recently acquired an M. Ed. on one. She has previously written a review of Cracks for Bitch Flicks and still not-so-secretly wants to be an Animorph when she grows up.