The way Denis weaves the story is exquisite in the way it limits and binds us to the role of helpless observer. The story is laid out from the beginning; nothing is hidden, no surprises are left untold. Yet conditioned by our hopes for an ending somewhat less despondent, we are trapped in the same denial, the same stubbornness as Marie. With the camera following her from behind, like children after a rushed parent, I too was dependent on her, followed her, shared my lot with her and ultimately felt her anger and despair as she punishes the man who made her love the illusion.
The ending was always however dolefully clear, announced by the helicopter crew overhead, confirmed by Ange and Louis, who told her bluntly that the helicopter came especially for her and her family, not them.
The Africans are often blunt in this unromanticised Africa, saved from a naive primitiveness and propelled forward as the rational, contemporary beings of the world they grudgingly share with the morally and financially impoverished White Material.
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