there are so many reasons this is tough to watch, the least of which is the lack of overarching structure. there are some incredible connections scene to scene, but no overall feeling of a destination or getting somewhere by the end. which is fine, but since this is 100+ minutes of alternating getting punched in the gut and kneed in the groin it’s pretty tough to make it in one sitting. and actually i think i first started this in november, took a bathroom break after the aids woman who couldn’t eat, then took a 2 month break after the sign that said ‘if you sleep with a whore, just beat her.’
but top to bottom this is just amazing. incredible subject, incredible depth, and just moment after moment you will not see anywhere else. there’s just too much here to process - the street kids fighting over the food to the russian pilot with a digital picture of some cat?! by the end i was just screaming at each scene - there was no way to just watch and compute all this. he does well showing these brutal ironies scene to scene but his greatest asset is clearly his method in filming and interviewing. all these people open up so much to him, so somehow he gained their trust, but he still maintains his purpose in a very common sensical way. his constant questioning of planes taking fish and bringing nothing, and most clearly when he asks the manager at the fish plant ‘isn’t there a famine here?’
i’ve thought for a while now that our concern about africa shouldn’t just be because of some current situation, but because in the long run something even worse than we’ve seen is going to happen. you can’t just keep squeezing people to less and less without something popping. even without any structure it’s hard not to read impending doom from darwin’s nightmare. in the interview on the extras sauper suggests at some point the industrialized world will see a genuine revolt from those it exploits and that seems pretty optimistic.
