A LOVE LETTER TO MY COUNTRY (RWANDA/2006/THIERRY DUSHIMIRIMANA)

Set in post-genocide Rwanda, A Love Letter To My Country follows the burgeoning romance between a Tutsi girl and Hutu man, whose lives have undergone vastly different changes as a result of the senseless mass murder. After a particularly impassioned performance in the local choir, Martha is singled out by choirmaster Rukundo, who hopes to get to know her better through a series of dates. When the couple finally get a chance to talk intimately, each reveals their background. Martha has lost almost all of her family to the genocide, while Rukundo was a conscientious objector to his family’s participation in the murders. The relationship endures tribulations as the pair’s families revive old prejudices.

The strength in the film is in not revealing the differences between Martha and Rukundo immediately – on face value, the two are able to get along without issue. Themes of unity prevail throughout the film, although often these are presented as illusions, and the open ending serves only to suggest that there are still repercussions of discrimination. The film is utterly absorbing at moments – some great acting in the scene where Rukundo’s family express their distrust of Tutsi makes for compelling viewing – but there are several flaws which keep the film from achieving its goal fully. Martha and Rukundo’s relationship happens quicker than the audience can fathom, and the film suffers from a few distracting technical shortcomings. Nonetheless, A Love Letter To My Country has great intentions and hopefully augurs well for the Rwandan film industry.

THE AGONY OF BYZANCE (FRANCE/1913/LOUIS FEUILLADE)

The Agony of Byzance depicts the Sack of Constantinople in the 13^th Century. Stood outside the city in full view of its terrified guards, Muslim soldiers prepare for battle. Emperor Constantine takes responsibility for his Christian subjects, arranging his own soldiers and comforting the rest of the citizens. Each opponent prays to their god for fortitude before the carnage begins, but while the Muslims seem strengthened with each prayer on the promise that their fallen soldiers will receive paradise, the Christian Byzantines feel they have been forsaken by God, and hold little hope for future battles. Emperor Constantine is only able to absolve his people before the city is inevitably taken over, an act which becomes more brutal than anyone could have imagined.

The Agony of Byzance, while ostensibly a war epic, places much of its attention on the religious aspect of the events. The power of prayer stands out as a central theme, and while it is a little unusual for a French film in the 1910s to appear to champion Islam over Christianity, the message of strong-mindedness is clear. Unlike many contemporary films, it is easy to forget that the entire film takes place on sound stages, or at least the enthusiastic battle sequences would have one believe. The scene in which the city is captured is particularly impressive, hundreds of extras trembling as they await their fate. The ending is slightly macabre, but the film is a reasonable delight if one watches it as a historical reenactment.

FORBIDDEN GAMES (FRANCE/1952/RENÉ CLÉMENT)

After an unforgiving attack by the Nazis kills her parents and pet dog, five-year-old Paulette is left without a family or a home. A local peasant family kindly takes her in, their ten-year-old son Michel becoming both brother and friend to her. The two bury Paulette’s beloved dog in a discreet spot in the woods, and soon become fascinated by dead animals. As their macabre interest grows, they collect corpses of animals to bury in a rudimentary cemetery, but when Michel steals crosses from the village’s graveyard, including that of his own deceased brother, the local adults decide to put a stop to these ‘forbidden games’. Worse still is the overhanging threat of the police, keen to take custody of the newly orphaned Paulette.

Despite its themes, Forbidden Games is careful not to overwhelm with morbidity – director René Clément remembers to celebrate life as an element of meditation on death. The protagonists, skilfully portrayed by young actors Brigitte Fossey and Georges Poujoly, behave as any bereaving child would. In a particularly provocative sequence towards the end, Michel discards all of the graveyard’s crosses, his anger justified and pure. The children’s explorations of their decaying environment are extraordinarily well shot – the camera becomes another child, free of judgment or authority. Forbidden Games is a charming, honest exploration of how the machinations of death affect children not readily equipped with the emotions to handle it, and still holds its own alongside similar features such as Ponette and The Spirit of the Beehive.

THE FIRST MOVIE (UK/2009/MARK COUSINS)

In 2009, filmmaker and critic Mark Cousins travelled to Goptapa, a tiny village in Iraqi Kurdistan which is sat at the crux of one of the twentieth century’s best-known conflicts. His role here was not only to record the beauty of the area through his own lens, but to give voice to the previously voiceless by donating high-definition cameras to the children in the area. Cousins invites his subjects to film whatever they wish, arranging projections of diverse films (Chakmeh, The Singing Ringing Tree, E.T.) to inspire them in their projects. The results are endearing, comical, even surprising – some of the children choose to film their parents or local elders, interviewing them about the horrific chemical attack on Goptapa in 1988. One boy, Mohammed, chooses to film his best friend, narrating his thoughts while he plays in the mud.

Cousins, born and raised in war-torn Belfast, is clearly speaking to his own background with this experiment, but The First Movie is above all about the children of the village. Rather than narrating over them, Cousins lets the films speak for themselves, only lending his voice to the sequences he shot himself to contextualise the documentary. In the film, Cousins notes David Lynch as an inspiration, and some of his sequences show an unacknowledged disquiet, particularly one showing a cow wandering through the streets at night. His love of cinema also percolates through the film, and it’s such a rush of emotion to see children so enraptured by The Red Balloon.

THE PERFECT CIRCLE (BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA/1997/ADEMIR KENOVIĆ)

Hamza is an alcoholic poet who stubbornly remains in Sarajevo as his family flees the country during the Yugoslav war. Surveying the debris in his own house, he comes across two young brothers, Adis and deaf-mute Kerim, who have been left orphaned. Hamza is initially unsympathetic towards the boys, but as he comes to understand what it means to be without a family, he promises to help them find their aunt Aicha, their only living relative. The search becomes increasingly emotional for Hamza, and he begins to hallucinate about his absent family. The group later encounter an Alsatian which has cruelly been shot in the leg, a shocking reminder that they are always at risk of dying.

Director Ademir Kenović is unrelentingly blunt in his portrayal of the war, and even in the first five minutes, we see the orphans escaping machine gun fire. However, Kenović maintains that the war is merely a backdrop for the real drama, that of storgic relationships born out of necessity. The camaraderie between Hamza and the boys is believable, to the point that you forget they were originally strangers. Exceptional use is made of the wartime setting – in fact, it’s near impossible to think of another film which dares to create theatre in such a freshly damaged area. Frequently, a scene will sink into comfortable playfulness, only to be interrupted by an ear-shattering explosion, and the effect is terrifying. Forget the meretricious slushiness of Life Is Beautiful, this is the war film to watch.

YAWAR MALLKU (BOLIVIA/1969/JORGE SANJINÉS)

Based on real events in 1960s Bolivia, Yawar Mallku tells the story of a population control program implemented by the local government, and executed by American Peace Corps volunteers. The program targets the indigenous Quechua people by setting up a clinic in an unnamed village and promising them first-class health care. In reality, the unit is sterilising the local women in the hope of removing the tribe completely. When the truth is discovered, the Quechua wage war on the Americans, but it becomes clear that the corps’ militant demeanour is too overwhelming for them. Nonetheless, the natives refuse to give up, using a wounded man who is refused treatment at the clinic as a martyr for their cause.

The film was understandably a significant contributor to anti-U.S. feelings at the time, and actually led to the dismissal of the Peace Corps in Bolivia. That this reflection of the injustices perpetrated on a minority could inspire such swift action is testament to the immediacy of cinema. But while the cause at heart is tragic, and the film’s existence de rigueur, Yawar Mallku is little more than a historical artefact. Director Jorge Sanjinés is known for his continual support of working-class Bolivians, particularly those ethnic minorities which enrich the fabric of Bolivian culture, but this film doesn’t seem to exhibit much in the way of cultural identity or pride. Perhaps this is just Westernised snobbery, as the film is still a remarkable work given the political and financial constraints at the time.

CROSS OF IRON (UK/1977/SAM PECKINPAH)

Based on Willi Heinrich’s chilling novel The Willing Flesh, Sam Peckinpah’s World War II epic opens as a Wehrmacht platoon takes charge of a bewildered child soldier on the Russian Front. The group’s new commander, the ruthless Captain Stransky, orders for the boy to be shot without question, and continues to upset the balance in the group as he reveals he is only interested in earning himself the Iron Cross. Stransky takes liberties with his authority, often jeopardising the other soldiers’ lives, but soon meets a challenge with the embittered Sergeant Steiner, whom he had effectively usurped. Steiner puts Stransky in a vulnerable position by refusing to take instruction and, more importantly, threatening to expose his lies about leading the counter-offensive which would win him the coveted Iron Cross. Soon the conflict is reduced to the two men, their original roles all but forgotten.

The film is preceded by a montage credit sequence depicting events which contributed to the fall of Nazi Germany, reiterating the futility of the soldiers’ efforts, but Peckinpah shows compassion for the source material and kudos must go to him for portraying the war without glamorising it. However, despite some visually outstanding battle scenes, the film is robbed of emotional potential by the sheer theatricality of it all. The German soldiers’ accents, ranging from British to Slavic, are unconvincing enough to be distracting, and a scene where one soldier’s homosexuality is exposed is so overacted that it could be inferred that the entire battalion had tendencies.