Some kids and a camera.
To Rotterdam and then Los Angeles
By John Esther
Mixing styles reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Bresson and Chris Marker, Kimi Takesue’s documentary about life in Uganda ripples with poetic complexity as it simply puts the camera on its subjects and lets the images express a harmonious connection between filmmaker, subject, and viewer.
Saying much with little dialogue, Takesue introduces us to such ordinary places as a hair salon, a martial arts dojo, a rock quarry bustling with child labor, a youth center where kids learn to bust a move, and the Entebbe Zoo where there were curious kids in attendance. Subjects often mundane in the hands of a lesser filmmaker or lesser surroundings, Takesue captures the beautiful and bold style of Ugandans -- what with the typical bold pinks, lavenders and whites of their clothes which shine under their genuinely warm smiles.
Not to be content with the usual, Takesue also shows the viewer other particular events like an Africa woman’s power lifting contest, a lavish Ugandan wedding (the groom and bride’s conflicting expressions are priceless), a VJ translating a “Bruce Lee” film to the local Lugandan language and local Ugandan independent filmmakers on set.
There is also more serious note when the documentary arrives at Hope North, a school providing school and home for children displaced by the civil war in North Uganda. Some of these children were abducted and coerced into the army, forced to kill if they did not kill. The school helps them recover from the traumas such situations summon.
Running a brief 72 minutes, Where Are You Taking Me? -- a question asked by some of the subjects but also a questions a viewer essentially asks before seeing a documentary – is, for the most part, a real pleasure to watch. This Documentary Competition item does get a bit mawkish at the end.
Recommended.
(Where Are You Taking Me screens June 20, 7:30 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 21, 9:45 p.m., Regal Cinemas; June 24, 5:15, Regal Cinemas.)
