I saw this documentary at the Film Critic screenings prior to the opening of the London Film Festival. "The Spectre of Boko Haram" covers the impact of violence on young children's' lives.
The documentary follows three young children in a refugee town in Cameroon: Falta, a studious and hardworking young girl, and her classmates, eight-year old Ibrahim and his 11-year-old brother Mohamad.
Positives:
- The director, Cyrielle Raingou, herself a Cameroon native, adopts an 'observational' view with their camera. Apart from some introductory and final captions, there is no overlay commentary. We just sit and observe what's going on. This makes the documentary feel highly intimate and engaging.
- The documentary packs several emotional gut punches, starting with an initial description by Falta of her father, and several other members of her family, being blown-up by a suicide bomber while selling a chicken. It is also gut-wrenching to see the children's school drawings and model-making reflecting the horrors of war they've witnessed. As they paint and model, heavily armed soldiers patrol the school perimeter in case of trouble.
- We get very engaged in the story of Mohamed and Ibrahim, who appeared to have been members of the terror group and witnessed atrocities themselves. But how much have they seen, and how much are they fabricating for effect? At one pont Mohamed describes seeing 'witches' transform into cats and then back into witches! Notwithstanding this, the pair are clearly damaged, unable to engage at school, threatening other children with knives and being constantly truant. They story takes a sinister turn half way through the film.
- Above all, you can't help but be struck by how 'normal' life is against this backdrop. Life just goes on: parents trying to do their best for their kids; the extraordinary dedication of teachers trying to give the kids a better life through learning, albeit with limited resources; doctors fighting both malaria and the "anti-witchcraft remedies" pushed by the locals; and the kids, desperately trying to make sense of it all.
Negatives:
- In physics, there is an effect called the "observer effect", which basically says you can't observe any system without changing it. You can sense that at work here. The armed soldiers seem to be sucking in their guts and being hyper-vigilant given that the camera is on them. And both Falta and young Ibrahim both start asking questions about their parents. Unprompted? I doubt it! You can't help feel some prompting by the director going on.
Summary Thoughts: I love documentaries that give us an insight into an alien world. "Electric Malady" was one such documentary from earlier in the year that did that. And this was another. You can't easily imagine what effect war has on young minds. But this does a good job at showing you. It's sad, moving but not without a quiet drumbeat of hope for the future in Falta's diligent school work.
Not an easy watch, but a recommended watch.
