July 2 movie: The Refugee All-Stars. This is a documentary about Sierra Leonean musicians who meet in a refugee camp in Guinea and form a band. Their music gives them a purpose as they tour refugee camps, and finally return to Sierra Leone to make an album.
I don't know how they did it, but somehow the movie manages to avoid what Kevin calls "Anne Frank syndrome" (the conceit that all victimized people must be noble, gentle, kind, creative, and generally without fault). The members of the Refugee All-Stars aren't cardboard cutouts of heroic victimhood; they're just people. Who have an awesome band. And who had something horrifying happen to them and to their country.
Post a comment