MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Kim Nguyen
After playing and winning numerous awards at film festivals, including Tribeca and Berlin, and nominations for both an Independent Spirit Award and an Oscar, Kim Nguyen’s War Witch finally makes its way to the theater. Nguyen’s film is a compelling coming-of-age tale of young love set against the harsh realities of war-torn Africa, where rebel soldiers fight against government forces while enlisting child soldiers. At the center of this story is a young teenaged girl named Komona (Rachel Mwanza) and through the story she tells her unborn child, we come to learn the horrors Komona has gone through at an entirely too early stage of her life.
Komona’s story begins at the age of 12 when rebel soldiers encroach upon her small village killing the bulk of its population, except for the children. The children become rebels themselves, tasked with fighting the government, and are quickly supplied with shoes and AK-47s. Komona’s initiation into the rebel force is through the ghastly act of being forced into killing her parents with an AK at point blank range. These early scenes inform the viewer that this is going to be a heart-breaking and uncompromising look at a young girl’s life, thrust much too early, into a life of killing and warfare.
The rebels make their way through the forest with the help of a shaman. Along the way the young new recruits, or slave soldiers, if you will, are taught how to shoot and are seemingly indoctrinated to believe that their guns are their new mothers and fathers. Two things happen for Komona while in the forest that drastically change her life – the first of which being meeting a young albino named Magician (Serge Kanyinda), a fellow soldier who shows compassion and affection towards Komona, and the other being after drinking magic milk given to her by the shaman, she discovers she has the ability to see ghosts within the forest that warn her of government forces hidden within the trees. Following the firefight where Komona is the sole survivor of her village coupled with the ability of see ghosts, Komona is declared a witch and celebrated by the rest of the rebel army and even gets to meet the Grand Tiger himself. Komona, at the young age of 13, is now the Grand Tiger’s war witch.
The ghosts that Komona witnesses throughout the film were, without a doubt, the highlight. The ghosts with their chalky white complexions are rendered with ashy brushstrokes and further perfected with use of foggy white contacts. Through their simplistic appearance and matter-of-fact presentation the ghosts achieve a powerful presence that push Komona’s story with a devastating effectiveness. Her mother and father begin to haunt her dreams and inform her they will continue to do so until Komona returns to her village; their spirits can only rest after Komona gives her parents a proper burial.
Magician and Komona do, however, escape the brutality of war and start their journey to find and lead normal lives and soon after Magician professes his love to Komona. However, the only way Magician can take her hand in marriage is after he finds and presents Komona with a white rooster, which may or may not even exist. Through sheer determination and undying resolve Magician sets out to find the elusive white rooster, even after being mocked and teased in his quest, Magician continues. Only as a matter of time does the past come back to haunt Komona and Magician; once again war intervenes in Komona’s life like an unrelenting force assigned to destroying everything in her life.
Kim Nguyen’s War Witch is a numerous films in one, all of which work wonderfully together and are strengthen by fantastic performances of all the characters, especially Rachel Mwanza and Serge Kanyinda. All of the awards and critical praise War Witch has received is definitely justified. The war aspects of the film are always brutal and uncompromising, but never overpowers the the film’s overall sense of hope, while the coming-of-age storyline, on its own, is just as effectively powerful. Even when the film swerves into the young love territory between Magician and Komona it proves to be just as moving and serves as a respite away from the harsh and brutal world around them. Top it off with the cinematography, the production design, the wonderful score and the perfectly realized spirits and War Witch becomes an outstanding film – once again worthy of all the critical acclaim that comes its way.
