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Reviews
Darwin's Nightmare (2004)
Fighting for survival over the white man's waste
A few minutes into this film, the feeling that I'm witnessing one of the strongest documentaries on Africa's tragic state of affairs, has just sunk in.
A mini cosmos, with a simple equation(or pipe): Raw life (Perch Nile fish, Young woman & children, hard labor) is drawn out of Africa, while death is exchanged in return (weapons, hunger, disease).
This pipe starts in the heavens, where it is oiled and maintained by organizations such as the WTO, through multi-national organization that prosper out this pipe (such as the plastics manufacturers, whose waste is used by the local children to make sniffing glue), a Russian airline which ships weapons and collects the fish, and it's small minion pilots who are eager to draw the life out of the young local prostitutes.
the bottom end of this pipe has no end, and those who already seen the film can surely recall many of the scenes:
The surrealistic hell from which fish leftovers are collected by a one-eyed woman (poisoned from toxic ammonia ), a rotten nightmare of rotten meat & worms.
Young kids fighting each other on shore to get a better part of a bowl with rice and beans, a scene like many other in this film which exemplifies the film title.
The night watchman with his bow & poisoned arrows, hoping for the next war as war is the time where there's less hunger (a government soldier is a relatively well paid job).
The film is at times difficult to watch, as it's terrible to witness this seemingly scientific experiment that tests the effects of extreme survival pressure on some very remote & unfortunate human beings.
A Mulher Polícia (2003)
Beautiful & Touching
Well, I must disagree with the comment above. I was touched by the film and actually didn't feel as it was extremely melodramatic. The events occurring to the mother and son did not feel out of context but somehow gave the impression of an unescapable tragedy. The photography of the film is superb, and the whole mood of the film tends towards the a kind of reflective-surreal feel. If indeed one comes with some very practical-rational expectations from the film then one would be disappointed as the commentator above. This film is indeed not a thriller - events takes slowly to unfold, but it is very far from being boring (much less patience is needed than watching films of the likes of Kislovski or Tarkovsky :).