Un cargo pour l'Afrique

I mean, really? It's budget was less than the catering bill of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. There were no special effects. No guns, no explosions, no profanity. The actors might be famous in Quebec, but they were unknowns to me. Yet I found myself caring deeply about them, almost from the first second. The lead didn't ham it up or go all Jim Carrey on us. If anything, he was so dour it was a miracle I cared what happened to him. But that studied rumpled fatigue made his happy moments so much more real and genuine. Heck even the monkey was a better actor than most Hollywood starlets. It was a buddy film and a coming of age film rolled into one. Yeah, you have to put up with English subtitles, I wondered if that was why the movie seemed so authentic, because I could not pick up on poor vocal performance, but I don't think so. Some things seemed rushed, some simplistic, but they were tiny minor hiccups in a great swath of competent film making. The lighting was great as was much of the cinematography. There were only a few moments where it looked like a home movie, and those were swept away by the compelling story. That story became Homeric, kinda like Oh Brother Where Art Thou. A thoughtful ending and a solid helping of all the art film touchstones, bureaucracy, genocide, man's inhumanity to man, but with a fundamentally decent and sweet undertone that made it a joy to watch. If you can put up with subtitles, and some people just can't, you will love this flick. Oh yeah, the music, how could I forget such a beautiful elegiac soundtrack? So perfect and so profound that the emotional ton of bricks does not hit you until the credits roll and that last haunting song begins to play.