The story of Ezra is a powerful tale about a child taken away and raised under the iron fist of a rebel leader. In Africa, a handful of countries that are dealing with corrupt governments or civil war contain half the number of the world’s child soldiers. As a problem that is out of our hands, as movie watchers we witness the specific story of Ezra, and his experiences.
In the movie, many names and places are left blank: the name of the country, the rebel leader, and most last names as well. This gives the story a sense of anonymity, letting it be an outline and explanation for thousands of stories about children in guerilla groups. The filmmaker makes sure to give enough detail that we relate to Ezra as a real person and not just as a story. If Ezra had been any vaguer it would lose any sense of reality and automatically become a fiction tale in our minds.
Although it’s left unclear, Ezra most likely takes place in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is most well known for the blood diamond situation it faces and the recent civil war, which ended in 2001. As portrayed in the movie, many guerrilla groups cut off hands and feet of male and female people alike. Many people automatically assume that the soldiers doing this are heartless or cold-blooded, but in Ezra it shows the brainwashing, sleep deprivation, and amphetamine injections of the children making them zombies and unaware of their actions.
The movie’s cinematography is strategically placed flashbacks that happen during a trial before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The trial is a great present-day place for the movie because it displays the process of recollection of memories and thoughts in contrast to who he really is as a person, post-war. It’s hard to see this kind of reality, and in Ezra the trial is hope for the future and the beginning process of healing.
It is so sad that innocent children are taken from their home and brainwashed into doing things they would not have done otherwise. The story of Ezra shows the lack of freedom of control of their own life these children had. Even the men in charge were not in control of their own actions because they were doing what they had been trained to do. Maybe leaving out specific names in the movie was a way in which to show the audience their loss of identity. The children no longer have control over their own actions and in consequence loose any chance for an identity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis. The story of Ezra is told with the purpose of giving the viewer insight into the travesties experienced by child soldiers. The amount of trauma that these children endure is incomprehensible to others--but by taking the viewer through Ezra's experience (from kidnapping to PTSD), we get a better understanding. I liked your comment about how many places and groups remain nameless, which allows the story of Ezra to be representative of other child soldiers as well.
ReplyDeleteI also liked how you noted that the soldiers act as "zombies". This term immediately made me think of Feli Kuti's song, whose lyrics I feel could also describe the child soldiers in the film--simply obeying orders and trying to stay as emotionally detached as possible.
As you have noted, it is important to understand how the children became soldiers. You point out that many see soldiers as inhumane, killing people, and mutilating them, when in actuality these soldiers are brainwashed. They do these things because if they don't, they will be killed. Also, I had not thought about the use of drugs and physical state of these soldiers that may alter their mental health.
ReplyDeleteThe way you break down the film into what is seen from a viewer is amazing. I feel the same way as the film goes on but there are certain things left blank. The situations and trials that Ezra, along with others, face are the stages of suspence that builds the film up as it goes on. This gives the film a sort of undefined theme which to me would make viewers pay more attention to those things most important in the film.
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