Kim Nguyen’s War Witch (Rebelle)

Vinh Nguyen reviews the award-winning film by Kim Nguyen, War Witch (Rebelle). The film explores the themes of survival, family, and home through a child soldier’s painful transitions and growth.

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In a voiceover, about half way through War Witch (Rebelle), the narrator and main character, Komona, tells us that her husband’s uncle – a butcher – needs to have an empty bucket next to him when he works. The cleaving of meat, the blood, reminds him too much of what happened to his family, making him throw-up. She then says: “I won’t tell you what happened. If I do you won’t listen anymore. You will do like you don’t have holes in your ear.” This refusal to tell gestures at the horrors that are unrepresented or unrepresentable within the film’s narration. Those unspeakable horrors seem unimaginable, however, given that the film doesn’t shy away from depicting intense moments of violence: the slaughter of an entire village by rebel forces, children forced to execute their own parents, chaotic gun battles. Komona’s words suggest that the real horror, the material conditions that many in conflict zones live through, or die within, lies beyond filmic representation.

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Kim Nguyen – a biracial Vietnamese Canadian who hails from Montreal – is aware of, and sensitive to, these conditions, having spent close to ten years researching the topic of child soldiers before developing the script and directing War Witch, his fourth feature film. The feel of intimacy in the narrative is the result of his research work and meticulous attention to the details of his characters’ experiences – this is perhaps the film’s biggest triumph. Upon its release in 2012, the film won a slew of awards, most notably the Best Narrative Feature and Best Actress at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Best Actress and Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Best Motion Picture at the Canadian Screen Awards. It was also nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at the 85th annual Academy Awards.

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Director Kim Nguyen (on far left) with the cast of War Witch (Rebelle)

Set in Sub-Saharan Africa (filmed on location in The Republic of Congo), the film opens with the kidnapping of a young girl, 12-year old Komona, by the Great Tiger rebel group. Before taking her away, the commander of the group coerces Komona into shooting her parents as a pledge of allegiance. She is then moved into the forest and trained to obey and love her gun like it is her new “mama and papa.” Later, in a battle with government soldiers, Komona miraculously escapes death – with a fortuitous warning from apparitions of the murdered that inhabit the forest – while the other child soldiers in her mission perishes. Her visions of these ghosts render her sacred in the eyes of the rebel leader and she becomes the new “war witch,” a charm that will help the rebels defeat their enemies.

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The film unfolds chronologically, divided into three chapters that correspond with Komona’s age (12, 13, 14). Even though it takes place in the span of three years in a girl’s life, War Witch encompasses the joy, grief, and courage of a lifetime’s worth. To convey the range of Komona’s experiences, the film’s pacing slides into different gears at various sections. For example, in chapter 13, when she runs away from the rebels to live a domestic life with her husband, “The Magician,” the film slows down considerably to capture the everyday niceties of their lives, lulling us into a calm that we know cannot and will not last. Similarly, the beauty of the film’s cinematography, its hand-held camera aesthetics and crisp images, exudes an unsettling lyricism – a sense of poetry haunted by past violence, one that threatens to erupt into terror at any moment.

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Anchored by a raw and powerful performance by Rachel Mwanza (an untrained actor who was orphaned at a young age and who, at one point in time, lived on the streets), the film explores the themes of survival, family, and home through Komona’s painful transitions and growth. Ultimately, it is interested in showing how, despite being repeatedly subjected to violence, she remains resilient and steadfast in her desire to love and connect.

While the film understands its limitation as a representational medium by refusing to “tell” certain horrors, what it does tell through the story of one child soldier tests our limits of human compassion, our capacity to open our ears, listen and engage.

Watch the trailer for War Witch below:

 

Vinh Nguyen is a PhD Candidate in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

                                                                                                                                                                               

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