The Stories We Must Tell

Rosa Ehrenreich is a journalist who tried to find the reason behind the war in Uganda. Are the rebels fighting for religion? Ethnicity? Or is this an ideological struggle? She was unable to come up with a clear answer.

Forced To Tell The Story

I found a web site article about “Invisible Children” which is a documentary about child soldiers in Northern Uganda. This article summarizes how three college graduates went on a journey to document the civil war in Sudan but went in a different direction when the filmmakers were stranded in Uganda (Hawkins, 2006). They only stumbled upon atrocity by accident. “We were forced to tell the story of the child soldiers, we had an obligation to tell the world,” Russell said (Hawkins, 2006). They hope that the film will help end the conflict in Uganda by raising the attention from the media.

TIME Cover Analysis

On June 5, 2006, TIME magazine published a cover story about Congo titled “Congo: The hidden toll of the world’s deadliest war.” The front cover picture does not captivate the power and meaningfulness of the article. The article vividly describes the Congolese people starving and malnourished. The article illustrates the people being in an ongoing war, which has resulted in about 3.9 million deaths. Rape, murder, and looting are what the Congolese people experience every day whether it is by rebels or their own government.

I came up with my own image for this story. I chose a young child who is extremely malnourished sitting on a dirt road looking away from the camera. The headline would read, “Congo war tragically effects the innocent civilians.” Immediately audiences would be heartbroken for this child. They then will go onto read that starving children isn’t the worst of it. This picture better captivates the imagery of the article. It doesn’t just show a sad looking child, it shows a child that the article describes. This picture shows the reality of Congolese people.

My Interpretation

The first image is the original TIME cover. The second image is my idea of what the TIME cover more should have looked like.

Invisible Children

Invisible Children is a documentary made on Ugandan children and their life full of fear, sadness, and hopelessness. Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole started their story with an attempt to cover Sudan, but instead came across the must tell story of Ugandan children.

*Picture taken from JFPI corporation site

Invisible Children

My Analysis of the Documentary

           When I heard about the documentary Invisible Children, I immediately became intrigued. The documentary summed up everything that I was researching into a 55-minute film. After watching the film, I thought to myself that it was not how I had imagined it would be.

           The introduction to the film lasted about 11 minutes. In this time, viewers saw the three filmmakers talk to the camera and give a little background information of themselves. The persona the boys gave off was sort of silly and childish. They did not give viewers the idea that the core of the documentary would be a sad and serious issue.

           A good chunk of the introduction also consisted of the boys killing a snake and throwing up due to probably the heat and food. Maybe the filmmakers took this dismissive rout in order to capture an audience with a lighthearted intro and then hitting them hard later on with the critical focal point of the documentary. Given how difficult it can be to learn about such an unfortunate country, I feel that the boys did a good job easing viewers into the film. However, I wouldn’t have made it so long. They should have cut it down to about 5 minutes at the most. Going on and on about them killing a snake was probably not necessary.

            The boys captured the personalities well of the people they interviewed. They asked the right questions, not only concerning the war, but also concerning the children’s aspirations. For example, the team asked Jacob what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said he would like to be a lawyer. The team also asked Jacob’s friend Thomas who said he wanted to be a teacher. Questions like these help viewers to not watch this film as just a documentary, but to realize that these are real people with real wants and wishes.

           Watching and reading about such horrors makes it hard to realize that these terrors are not fictional. Being an American citizen where the children are exceptionally valued and cherished, it is hard to believe that in other parts of the world on a regular basis children are abused and used as fighters or sex servants.The team touched a bit on the history of why Uganda is in war to begin with. Apparently it all started out with a crazy woman and her beliefs. They didn’t get into the history as in depth as I would have liked. I’m still confused some on how it all began and I wish the boys had taken even more time to talk about it.

            The visual aspect of the film was mostly very appealing. I thought the color used for the subtitles was poor. Red would have probably worked out better than yellow. It was hard to read the yellow at times. All the images and people they captured on film sent out well the documentaries message. I wish there was even more landscape shots to view the entire culture at one time. I liked all the interviews, but more shots of the community would probably have made it even more emotional.

           The scenes in the film where cartoon drawings were narrated I did not find appealing. Real life images would have made more of an impact than the drawings. A series of a few still images of drawings would have also made more of an impact. However, the music selection was perfect. I thought the music used fit each scene in the documentary. They mixed it up with using depressing and lively music. It was a very good balance.            

            Overall, I think the three filmmakers captured the Ugandan cultures, fears, and lives very well. They interviewed people to get into their personal and heartbreaking lives. They captivated Uganda’s trials and made viewers aware of the truth. They wanted Uganda to get more recognition from the media, and I think the boys accomplished that.

*Go to http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3166797753930210643 to watch the documentary.

Conclusion

nUgandan citizens live in fear because of the LRA rebels. Children do not feel safe sleeping in their homes so they travel each night to a safer location. These lifestyles cannot be looked over, and the media needs to take more interest to unfortunate countries such as Uganda.

Resources

Ehrenreich, R. (1998, Jan-March). The stories we must tell: Ugandan children and the

     atrocities of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Africa Today, 45.

Google. Invisible Children. 2006, April 7.

            http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=31667977539

            30210643

Hawkins, A. (2006, April 21). Daily Trojan. Cinema Graduates Show Child Soldiers of     

     Uganda. January 2, 2008.   

http://media.www.dailytrojan.com/media/storage/paper679/news/2006/04/21/News/Cinema.Graduates.Show.Child.Soldiers.Of.Uganda-1865294.shtml   

JFPI Corporation. Invisible Children. 2006, October 15.

            http://www.jfpicorp.com/viewtopic.php?t=318

Our World Foundation. Effects of Global Warming and Climate Change. 2008, January 8.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ourworldfoundation.org.uk/0021172.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ourworldfoundation.org.uk/effects-nof.htm&h=549&w=400&sz=32&hl=en&start=17&sig2=PIYe3P_XVYwPp4uV202prA&tbnid=IMCAJWrFaomhqM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=97&ei=OAeWR4XkNI-kef-X9QI&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522our%2Bworld%2Bfoundation%2522%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DG

Robinson, S. (2006, June 5). The Deadliest War In the World. TIME, 167, 38-41.

Singer, P. (2005). Children At War. New York: Pantheon Books.

Sites, K. (2007). In The Hot Zone. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

YouTube. Invisible Children. 2006, May 02.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0XQEysQJPQ