Where Are You Taking Me?: movie review

This tactic, of course, only works if there is something worth looking at in the first place. Fortunately, the Uganda of this film is almost brazenly photogenic, and no more so than with the faces of the people themselves. Takesue has a wonderful eye for human portraiture, and for landscape portraiture, that is arresting without being static. She captures, as she intended, the lyricism of the everyday.

We are taken seemingly everywhere in the country, from Kampala to rural villages. We see a high-society wedding, with the bride and groom as crisply fashioned as figures atop a wedding cake; we observe a women's weight lifting competition held in the banquet room of a fancy hotel. In another sequence, a video VJ does live translations of Bruce Lee films in the local Lugandan language to a roomful of sleepyheaded kids. Boxers at a makeshift outdoor gym spar furiously in rhythmic pirouettes. We visit a movie set where what looks like a pulp action film is being shot. (Later on we see snippets from such a film inside a darkened theater.)

An impromptu break dancing competition turns into a joyful whirligig, especially when, to the onlookers' delight, a little girl wanders into the circle to try out moves. In the marketplaces, where the wares include colored fabrics of almost incandescent brightness, Takesue, who is always off camera, registers the curiosity and wariness her presence elicits from the vendors. A few people duck the camera altogether; others stare stonily into it or embrace it with wide smiles. They surely feel, and rightly so, that they are not zoo specimens, and Takesue is careful to respect their sympathies. And yet, in the end, she gets what she wants, even from those who turn away from her. The turning away, she seems to say, is part of the story, too.

One group that does not turn away are the children. In the second half of the film she concentrates on Hope North School, a refuge for children, some diagnosed with AIDS, many of them former child soldiers forced to commit unspeakable atrocities. These orphans and castoffs are rehabilitated here. They are given the gift of rediscovering human connections in peacetime. This is one part of the film that could have used a bit more context, but we get the message anyway. We get it not only in the rompy scenes with young kids mugging for the camera but also in the shot of a stricken-looking older boy who talks about how he dreams of guns and asks Takesue, "Why are you taking my story to USA New York?"

If he were to see this film, he would know why. Grade: A (Unrated)

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