The Wild and the Brave

Color my surprise on finding The Wild and the Brave hidden away on Amazon Prime. It's an Oscar nominated documentary shot in one of Uganda's largest national park.

This is a very great film that works as a powerful microcosm for the transition of Africa from a colonial continent into an ostensibly free one. Early this year I saw a documentary about Ralph Bunche, by the great William Greaves, and a significant part of it dealt with the complications on a global scale of this transition. Eugene Jones' film offers an intimate version of events allowing for a nuance in topics that I could not have considered before hand.

The film is about a white chief ranger training his black replacement. Both men are well characterized so that they can represent themselves as well as the figures they represent. A classic example of this happens about half way through when a conversation over darts takes subtext and turns it into text. Our white man is worried that the new recruits being so well educated means they will be harder to train. The replacement argues that education is a good thing as it means they will be more competent and trustworthy. The conversation serves as the crux of the film.

There are many wrinkles to this understanding throughout though. The most curious to me is the white man's view of himself. He is a Ugandan and claims as much many times. His personal and professional frustration comes from being born in Uganda and having it being the only home he knows. England is just foreign to him as to Paul, the replacement. It is beyond his capabilities to understand why this newly freed state would not want a white man in this very important position.

The transitions of the film are not limited to the colonial one though. The film also deals with the native Ugandans and how they have to deal with self governance. The ethnic fighting between tribes is the major background story showing all the rangers not merely responsible for the animals, but also the people. There are a few native rituals shown that are hard to watch. At one point I had to cover my eyes. They're a valuable texture of the film though as it gives a sense of how expansive Ugandan society is. It is not merely the us vs. them that it seems on first blush. It's hundreds of us against hundreds of thems. All the while Amin stands as the great shadow of how he will shape everything we see.

I wasn't expecting much at first from this little obscurity, but now it seems one of the most essential documentaries I have ever seen being a compelling view of one of the least studied in cinema moments of history.