A child-soldier in Africa inches toward peace

Crying out for Africa is the natural response when watching Nigerian director Newton Aduaka’s wrenching film. How can you not lament a place where children are kidnapped and forced to become soldiers? Eventually it sinks in that Ezra is about much more than a single continent, nation (diamond-rich Sierra Leone), conflict or boy. According to a title card displayed at the end, 300,000 children around the world are currently on the frontlines of military conflicts. As horrible as that statistic is, you can’t help but think of the millions being exploited in other ways. Being compelled to kill and die is just one. Clear-eyed and without aiming for the emotional jugular, Ezra goes well beyond geography, politics and ethnicity, reaching beneath the surface scratched by popular entertainments like Blood Diamond to explore the psychological toll on young people caught in violent situations not of their making and beyond their understanding.

Well-made, the movie doesn’t sacrifice aesthetic beauty to tell its brutal tale of a 6-year-old Ezra, kidnapped along with fellow students from their elementary school by a rebel faction called the Blood Brotherhood. The children are trained to fight in a civil war fueled by power and greed, not religion or tribal animosity. Their inculcation features slogans such as “Change through the barrel of a gun” and “No hand, no vote.” The action unspools in flashbacks as Ezra—a hardened, dazed 16-year-old widower following the war—appears before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His sister, while personally supportive, offers testimony against him. During an attack on a village in which Ezra, high on amphetamines, firebombed his own parents’ hut, another militant cut her tongue out. Before long, the unforgettable sounds she makes are echoed in Ezra’s cries as he tries to extricate himself along with his pregnant wife. These and other atrocities—mostly executions by gunfire—are not graphically depicted, which adds to their power. And while some of the acting is stilted, partly attributable to the English-language dialogue, the contrast between the harsh events and the movie’s high production values is effective.

Expressly preoccupied with forgiveness and the steps necessary for reconciliation, director and co-writer Aduaka doesn’t pass judgment, yet strongly implies that basic moral imperatives can’t be forgotten. The idea is to provoke dialogue that can lead to healing, a goal that doesn’t sound hackneyed after witnessing Ezra’s plight. Whatever his culpability, he’s far from acknowledging what he did and thereby starting to find peace. The process has only just begun. Good thing he’s still a teenager.

Distributor: California Newsreel
Cast: Mamadou Turay Kamara, Mariame N’Diaye, Mamusu Kallon, Merveille Lukeba and Richard Grant
Director: Newton I. Aduaka
Screenwriters: Newton I. Aduaka and Alain-Michel Blanc
Producers: Michel Loro and Gorune Aprikinan
Genre: War/Drama
Rating: Unrated
Running time: 110 min.
Release date: February 13