After former President Charles Taylor was convicted of war crimes on Thursday, I finally let myself watch Johnny Mad Dog.
It just seemed right.
Johnny Mad Dog is a 2008 French/Liberian film that follows fictional (but spot-on) child soldiers as they march towards Monrovia. The film is almost incoherent if you've never heard Liberian English but you could watch it on mute and not miss a thing. (It's like 300.)
I have a real soft spot for dark, brutal tales. I don't know why. My mother, a self-described chicken, won't go near Dexter or roller-coasters because "the things [she] read at UN were scary enough." But if I've got an afternoon to myself, give me something disturbing to watch.
That said, Johnny Mad Dog is one of the eeriest films I've ever seen.
It took me several years to man up and watch Hotel Rwanda. I didn't really know why. Maybe I knew it would hit a little too close to home. But this movie...this Liberian movie...is home. The actors -- some of them actual former child soldiers -- have the features and inflections of my countrymen, people with whom I share sidewalks. I started to feel sick. I reminded myself it wasn't a documentary and the film became digestible. I was fine. Then I saw my cousin -- my cousin -- attacked in a scene and all the distance I'd created evaporated. I immediately felt sick again. And I remembered my poor mom and thought: Yes. The world is scary enough.
It just seemed right.
Johnny Mad Dog is a 2008 French/Liberian film that follows fictional (but spot-on) child soldiers as they march towards Monrovia. The film is almost incoherent if you've never heard Liberian English but you could watch it on mute and not miss a thing. (It's like 300.)
I have a real soft spot for dark, brutal tales. I don't know why. My mother, a self-described chicken, won't go near Dexter or roller-coasters because "the things [she] read at UN were scary enough." But if I've got an afternoon to myself, give me something disturbing to watch.
That said, Johnny Mad Dog is one of the eeriest films I've ever seen.
It took me several years to man up and watch Hotel Rwanda. I didn't really know why. Maybe I knew it would hit a little too close to home. But this movie...this Liberian movie...is home. The actors -- some of them actual former child soldiers -- have the features and inflections of my countrymen, people with whom I share sidewalks. I started to feel sick. I reminded myself it wasn't a documentary and the film became digestible. I was fine. Then I saw my cousin -- my cousin -- attacked in a scene and all the distance I'd created evaporated. I immediately felt sick again. And I remembered my poor mom and thought: Yes. The world is scary enough.
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