Wit licht

An evening to the movies turns out to be one of the greatest accomplishes in Dutch cinema.

Wit licht starring Marco Borsato is a great movie! From the first second you sit in your seat you are caught into the story line in which Marco Borsato goes on his journey to find a boy who has been taken by rebels. Although Marco Borsato is a singer from origin he delivers great screenplay and at the end of the movie he had the whole theater in tears.

Wit licht brings attention to the problems in Africa while bringing great entertainment to the movie theaters. 10/10!

Eduard Zuiderwijk (Marco Borsato) is a cook with his own restaurant somewhere in Uganda (my guess is Kampala). After the death of his wife Anna, he is now the single father of Thomas (Siebe Schoneveld). And fatherhood isn't easy for him, as he struggles to find time to take care of his son. However Thomas copes without his father presence thanks to his best friend Abu (Sam Okelo), the housemaids son.

That is until one days the Gods Army, a rebel group in Uganda led by the ruthless Michel Obeke (Abby Mukiibi Nkaaga), raids Abu's village and takes him prisoner. Not soon after Abu is slowly but surely being converted into a child soldier. Thomas however is unable to cope with another loss and dragged down by feelings of guilt Eduard decides to embark on a rescue mission.

As in most such Western movies the inherent weakness stems from placing a European context onto an African mindset and situation. Ripe with generalisations and troubled constantly by the inherent 'good intentionality' of the story the movie is a quagmire of bad scripting, simplified interactions and self-important gibberish. Coupled with some abysmally atrocious acting the question lingers: Why did I give it such a relatively high mark? Most of this has to do with the unrelenting realism of the situation of child soldiers and the very convincing portrayal of the process of molding youth in deadly weapons. Sam Okelo, Abby Mukiibi Nkaaga and some other black actors (notably Okelo's father) make most rebel scenes exceptional, heart-wrenching, believable and tragic. Especially the young Okelo does a stand-out job and really conveys the terror of conformity, which forces unwilling children to become that which they hate. Now if this movie had dealt almost entirely with the plight of Abu it would have been a memorable achievement. However...

Each and every time a white face appears in the picture the story-writing and dialogues take a head-dive into the badlands - unfortunately for the viewers this is about 70% of screen time. None of the white actors do even a mediocre acting job, while - I hate to say this about child actors - Thomas is absolutely atrocious. The less said about Marco Borsato the better - he should definitely stay with his day job. The direction of the movie feels like a hatchet job, so - despite some memorable and strong scenes - the movie is littered by several sequences, which invoke laughter and ridicule (not a good thing in a movie with such a sombre subject matter.

Essentially the movie feels as if writer/director Jean van de Welde took some real-life situations regarding child soldiers and struggled to paste together a plot around those ideas. Hence the realism of the rebel scenes work nicely, but the rest feels forcibly flung together, is poorly written and lacks similar intensity or significance.

The decent rating I give this movie concerns solely the rebel parts. Without them I wouldn't venture to grade it higher than a 1. Very surprising that Cannes let this artistic failure anywhere near their competition - not quite a turd, but very close to being one.

First of all; the behavior of Marco Borsato is very rookies and secondly you can save time when you watch a Warchild ad, because this movie is just one huge Warchild advert.

All the effort of showing the Warchild (a NGO) case is really annoying and this is a bad ego trip of Marco Borsato Borsato is the only hero of the movie and the Africans all seem to be war victims or war criminals and nothing else. If a naive cook from Europe becomes a action "hero" in the way that it has being filmed it looks like a nice piece of imperialism.

The subject of child soldiers has already been told and filmed hundreds of times and this movie is not a good way to show the problem, because its just a personal ego trip of those who made it.

"White Light" is the story of a cook (Eduard Zuiderwijk played by Marco Borsato) in South Africa who wants to find the child of one of his employees. The child (Abu) was abducted to become a child soldier. The story shows the impact of such experiences to the children.

There is a lot to do about this movie since the popular Dutch singer Marco Borsato had no acting experience. He uses his popularity to support the WarChild foundation. This movie gets you right in the middle of what WarChild is all about. Marco is a typical 'feel good' guy with 'feel good' music. Don't expect a 'feel good' movie though. Reality will hit you hard in the face.

Accept the fact that Marco is a rookie actor and within the first 15 minutes you will enjoy one of the better Dutch movies ever made.

THE SILENT ARMY is a Dutch film looking at the plight of child soldiers fighting for warlords in sub-Saharan Africa. The film humanises the story by having as its central protagonist a white man desperately hunting for the kidnapped son of a friend who has been taken by a notorious general and who is now a ruthlessly cold-blooded killer.

The film I can best compare this with is JOHNNY MAD DOG, a Liberian effort which had greater authenticity and realism but hardly any kind of story. Thus THE SILENT ARMY is the better picture, even though the story is spoilt a little by the low budget; some of the moments are rather cheesy (such as a CGI explosion) which is a pity given the grittiness seen elsewhere in the story.

The language is a mixture of English and Dutch. The acting is generally authentic and compelling enough to keep you watching. The film is violent and harrowing without ever being disgustingly graphic. The actor who played the warlord made the film for me with his completely chilling and efficient performance devoid of emotion and feeling. It's a film worth watching if you can handle the subject matter.