Harrowing Refugee Tale Disguised as Horror

His House (2020) - Weekes  

Remi Weekes's debut film is a harrowing immigrant experience disguised as an extremely effective horror film. Not only it depicts of horror of being uprooted from your own home and culture and calamitous journey to the unknown, unwelcoming foreign land, it also illustrates the emotional toll of being the ones who left rather than left behind. His House, with the South Sudan refugee couple in focus, Weekes zeros in on that guilt that weighs down on the survivors. 

Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) after losing their daughter when the boat carrying them capsized in the Mediterranean sea, and after being processed at the English customs, arrive at their designated housing project in a drabby suburbs of London. It's a spacious- "bigger than my house," quips the icy, snickering housing authority figure, but derelict interior of the building needs a lot of tender loving care to be welcoming. Bol wastes no time to assimilate to his new surroundings, he eagerly changes to a new western clothes from his traditional garb, brings utensils to eat their food, exploring the depressing and hostile working class neighborhood. Rial on the other hand, refuses to change her ways and mourns the death of the child, eats her food on the floor with her hand, in traditional ways. 

A heartless case worker Mark(Matt Smith) checks on them and warns them that unless they improve their living conditions, meaning settling in and make the place more livable, it won't reflect good on their refugee status. 

Things start to fall apart right away - they hear scuttles in the walls day and night. Thinking they are from rats, the couple complain to Mark, but there is a very little can be done. Then they hear sound of children giggling, torturing the couple with the memories of their daughter who perished in the sea. Or did she? 

Not soon enough, Bol starts hammering the walls to find the source of the disturbance that leaves the plaster walls like swiss cheese. Water starts flowing out of nowhere. And the couple has encounters with supernatural. All these wouldn't help their status when Mark finds out. 

His House would make a great companion piece with the last year's Atlantics, another African ghost story that deals with the same subject. The film is a superb horror that reflects on the psychological scar a war perpetuates on its victims and those impossible choices that they are forced to make. Surprise find in Netflix streaming and very much looking forward Remi Weekes next project.

New/Old Colonialism

We Come as Friends (2015) - Sauper

Hubert Sauper, a Paris based filmmaker known for his searing eco-disaster exposé in Tanzania, Darwin's Nightmare (2005), continues to document the African continent in his new documentary, We Come As Friends. This time, he sheds light on the post-referendum era Sudan. And it is a damning indictment of new-old colonialism that casts shadows on every corners of the youngest country in the world - South Sudan.

Sudan's decades long civil war claimed estimated 2.5 million lives and created the biggest humanitarian crisis since WWII. In the West, Sudan became synonymous with child soldiers, Lost Boys of Sudan and various Human Rights violations.

After decades of the bloody conflict, South Sudan's Christian majority finally broke free from Khartoum's merciless Islamic government and voted resounding yes to the cessation in 2011.

Still, as Sauper examines, that the newly founded country is riddled with many serious problems. He makes a broader claims that the chaos stems from the colonial past. He draws parallels with then and now, with British and French drawing the line in the sand throughout the continent and Chinese and American companies competing for dominance securing the country's natural resources - the oil fields that precariously borders the north and south.

Sauper, seen on the fields documenting and asking questions, shows that the control for oil fields are still raging among different factions. The oil revenues buy more weapons to fuel the conflict. Chinese oil and mine companies buy up the lands from locals who don't have the concept of land ownership exploit the land and don't take responsibilities for environmental damages. It's jarring to see garbage strewn road to the oil company compounds and seeing so many Chinese workers living in workers camp in the middle of nowhere. There are no contacts between them and its native inhabitants nearby.

With animosity between Muslims and Christians are scarier than ever and the threat of violence is regarded a necessity between them. Whenever Sauper and his crew lands their rickety plane, the first question people ask is whether they are Muslim or Christian, the intensity of their question and stares barely contains the possibilities of violence.

Stock footage of group of white settlers and dignitaries chilling near poolside is juxtaposed with modern day missionaries and foreign dignitaries. Farmers and other inhabitants are losing their land to 99 year leases for Christian missionaries and their western style schools. Children in their traditional garb are banned from attending schools. And well meaning white settlers are seen giving out T-shirts and putting sox on a Sudanese toddler on the dirt floor.

Just like Darwin's Nightmare some years ago, We Come as Friends points out overwhelmingly dire circumstances the post-colonial Africans find themselves in. We see the human cost of up close and personal and its devastating. The film's a little unwieldy and expansive, but one should give Sauper a credit for trying to encompass everything that's been going on for decades in a country still riddled with open wounds of the colonial past in 1 hour 40 minutes. It's another strong case against the long lasting effect of colonialism.

We Come as Friends opens August 14 at IFC Center. Please check IFC Center website for tickets & more info.