the revolution will be dramatized.

The cover of the Daresalam DVD (handy plot summary here) quotes an LA Weekly review that calls the film a "poignant essay on civil war in modern-day Chad" — but the oddity is that, while it was made there, by a director from Chad, it's actually set in Tanzania. I feel rather ignorant for not remembering that Dar es Salaam is that country's capital.

I only realized the error in the quote when I began to do some background reading after watching the film last night. I had wondered why the film avoided showing any apparent landmarks in the city constantly referred to as "the capital" — I'm suppose now it's because those scenes, while set in Dar es Salaam, were shot in N'Djamena.

"Daresalam ends on a note of unironic optimism more radical than all the calculated nihilism served up on Western movie screens," enthuses Ernest Hardy in that LA Weekly piece, and that much is true enough. But what I really enjoyed about this film was that it was a fascinating peek into a culture I know little about (despite my childhood relationship with a missionary family that had spent years in the Chad Republic). It reminded me of all those enjoyable hours spent with low-budget foreign films at good old Wormwood's Cinema.