Camp de Thiaroye by Senegalese Director is a war movie without a war. Set on an army post in Senegal towards the final days of WWII, it follows a regiment of the French West African Armed Forces who have returned from a tour of duty in Europe. The story is an allegory for the resistance movement to colonialism that sprung up after the war and led to the end of colonialism. Often bloody, it captures the relationship between American soldiers stationed in Dakar, French commanding officers and the French West Africans while touching on issues of racism, inferiority complex and black on black relationships. Never one to lead the audience, Sembene takes his time staging scenes often with beautiful framing that eats up the edges of the screen. It may leisure and some scenes are didactic but it never wavers in its utmost honesty and its eventual humanism resulting from a cataclysmic ending that is both gripping that echoes the refrain that maybe we are all crazy. It is one of the better movies of this master of cinema and in this reviewer's opinion, a 10/10.
