Ebbo Velten (Pierre Bokma) is a German doctor working in Cameroon. He’s in a happy marriage, with one child, living in a country he absolutely adores. A big decision awaits him as his friend Gaspard Signac (Hippolyte Girardot) makes him an offer while he prepares to leave for his home country. Meanwhile, another doctor, Congolese-born Frenchman Alex Nzila (Jean-Christophe Folly), investigates the misuse of European aid funds by an African organization claiming an outbreak of “sleeping sickness.” Totally unprepared, Nzila confronts circumstances that takes him into a Heart of Darkness.
Well, after watching Kohler’s Sickness, which followed El estudiante, I don’t feel so dumb. There were political implications to the plot, but it wasn’t bogged down by a intricate web of dense agenda. The film itself was a narrative expose on the Euro-African bureaucratic parasitic relationship. Some may find it a refreshing sober take on a reality buried in years of political correctness. Many American conservatives would probably embrace this movie were it not a foreign-language film—a genre that caters mostly to the liberal art-house crowd. The parasitic nature of government handouts stifling growth over time appears to line up with their politics. Funny how some people can’t bother to seek out such movies and put their money where their mouth is. Funny, and sad.
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