Films that demonstrate how governments or quasigovernmental groups have violated or promoted the values in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
FEMALE CIRCUMCISION RUINS MORE LIVES IN GOD’S SANDBOX Although Moolaadé last year featured Senegalese women protesting female circumcision in the 1990s, God’s Sandbox (Tahara) brings the practice into a Romeo-and-Juliet story involving an Israeli woman and a Bedouin man in the 1960s. Directed by Doron Eran, the movie begins in the present, with a sixtysomething […]
YUGOSLAV COMMUNISTS APE NAZI METHODS IN THE GREAT WATER The breakup of Yugoslavia was a tragedy, especially because of the ethnic cleansing that took place. Accordingly, some recall with nostalgia the way in which the various ethnic groups lived together in harmony under Marshall Iosip Broz Tito. The Great Water (Golemata voda), a Macedonian film
A PRIEST LEAVES DACHAU TO MEET FAUST IN THE NINTH DAY Among the many horrific accounts of the Nazi era, Constantine Costa-Garvas’s Amen (2003) raised serious questions about the silence of the Vatican. The Ninth Day (Der neunte tag), directed by Volker Schlöbdorff, provides a partial answer to that silence. When the film begins, Abbé
MACHUCA PORTRAYS THE CLASS STRUGGLE THAT BROUGHT ABOUT & UNSEATED ALLENDE IN CHILE In 1973, after the reelection of Richard Nixon, the government of democratically elected Salvador Allende was replaced by a military coup led by General Agusto Pinochet. Machuca, directed by Andrés Wood, attempts to recreate events before, during, and after the coup from
IN MY COUNTRY DEPICTS APARTHEID OBSCENITIES BEFORE & AFTER MANDELA BECOMES PRESIDENT When an unjust regime falls, how can a new government provide justice? Whereas the French and Russian revolutions killed off the royal family, the film In My Country attempts to explain the South African approach–through a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Directed by John
The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro), directed by Alejandro Amenábar, is a plea for the right of a person to end one’s own life, with a subtext about the hypocrisy of Catholicism’s opposition to suicide yet support for the death penalty. The Spanish film, which also could be translated “Adrift,” is based on the true story
CONSEQUENCES OF WORLD INACTION EXPOSED IN HOTEL RWANDA In 1994, Paul Rusesabagina saved the lives of 1,200 persons in his role as manager of Sabena Airline’s four-star Hotel Milles Collines in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Hotel Rwanda, directed by Terry George, tells that story. As the movie explains through the dialog of various actors,
MOOLAADÉ CUTS THROUGH THE TABOO OF FEMALE CIRCUMCISION Moolaadé, directed by Ousmane Sembène, is a truly remarkable film from Sénégal that focuses on the injustice of female genital circumcision (FGC). When the film begins, the annual FGC ritual is underway in a remote Burkina Faso village that has a beautiful mosque and a sculpture of
VERA DRAKE REVEALS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN IF ABORTIONS ARE BANNED In 1861, Britain made abortions illegal. On November 17, 1950, middle-aged Vera Drake is arrested for performing an illegal abortion, and she is sentenced to thirty months in prison after a trial during the following January. The film Vera Drake, directed by Mike Leigh, tells
The Yes Men, directed by Dan Ollman, Sara Price, and Chris Smith, is an autodocumentary in the same genre as Michael Moore’s Roger & Me (1989). Indeed, Moore appears on the screen twice with his usual eloquence. However, the real inspiration appears to have come from Candid Camera’s Alan Funt, as the two principals, Andy