Synopsis
Somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, Komona a 14-year-old girl tells her unborn child growing inside her the story of her life since she has been at war. Everything started when she was abducted by the rebel army at the age of 12.
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Cast
- Rachel MwanzaKomona
- Alain Lino Mic Eli BastienCommandant-rebelle
- Serge KanyindaMagicien
- Ralph ProsperBoucher
- Mizinga MwingaGrand Tigre Royal
- Diane UwamahoroKomona - Narrator (voice)
- Jean KabuyaSchool camp coach
- Jupiter BokondjiRoyal Tiger' sorcerer
- Starlette MathataKomona's mother
- Alex HeraboKomona's father
Recommendations
- 91
The A.V. Club
War Witch is a remarkably mature portrait that trusts its audience to have their own reactions to its material; it doesn’t yank at the heartstrings so much as expertly strum them. - 91
The Playlist
Blending a surrealist perspective of battle-tinged faith with the harrowing tale of one girl's resilience, the film is a laser-focused fable threatened occasionally by its drifts into character shorthand, but equaled by a wrenching lead performance by Rachel Mwanza that results in one of the finest of the year. - 90
The New York Times
Superstition, witchcraft, exorcism, talismans that ward off evil: in this land of the supernatural, irrationality prevails. But War Witch is so cleareyed that it makes you wonder how much more irrational this world is than the so-called civilized one under its camouflage of material wealth. - 83
Film.com
It does a marvelous job at giving us an impressionistic taste of horrific circumstances without using them to beat us into submission. - 80
Variety
Along with the moral lesson, Nguyen remembers to give auds some pleasures, including the exquisitely chosen soundtrack of African folk and pop music, Nicolas Bolduc's cinematography and the very artful use of sound throughout. - 80
Time Out
The film’s subject is almost too horrible to contemplate, but it finds a way to space out the blows without softening them. - 80
Village Voice
Nguyen's matter-of-fact storytelling proves to be the right match for a life of extraordinary suffering. In art, lives like Komona's are all too often given an alien sheen. Here, they feel unnervingly plausible. - 75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
So is this a Western take on Africa? Yes, but Rebelle is full of such careful detail, and is carried so beautifully by Mwanza’s performance, that questions of authenticity slide away.
