FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
Directed & Written by: Peter Bate. Produced by: Paul Pauwels. Released by: ArtMattan. Country of Origin: UK/Belgium. 84 min. Not Rated. Narrated by: Nick Fraser.
In the early 1880s, the Congo Free State (now the Democratic
Republic of the Congo) had an estimated 20 million inhabitants. The
population was halved during the next 40 years under the rule of Leopold II
of Belgium. At roughly 80 times the size of Belgium, the country's vast
amount of rubber trees enriched the monarch,
thanks to the new demand for tires. Produced for European television,
filmmaker Peter Bate methodically makes his case against the monarch,
holding him responsible for a holocaust as he turned the Congo into a labor
camp. Bate also levels his charges against Belgium itself for reinventing
history in honoring the man (who at his death Bate calls "the most hated man in
Europe") as a great king and civilizer. In response, the Belgian
government has condemned this film's equating Leopold as a precursor to
Adolf Hitler.
Visually, Bate makes sure the audience is never
bored. A mock trial of the stone-faced king confronting accusers is
interwoven throughout, and the sepia-toned recreations of the brutality are clearly delineated
from the archival footage. But the declamatory reenactments are not as
effective as the facts presented in the prosecutorial voiceover or
the inclusion of historical materials, including photos of Congolese
children who had their right hands chopped off.
Bate’s evidence, without a doubt, undermines the assertion of the Royal
Museum of Central Africa's spokesman that the king was a man of vision,
“like it or not." However, there is more information than this
84-minute film can fully contain: a psychological profile of the king (“the
little tyrant” to his father); explorer Henry Morton Stanley's collusion with
Leopold to exploit Africa; and perhaps most fascinating, the
David and Goliath struggle of British
shipping-clerk-turned-journalist Edmund Dene Morel to expose the Congolese atrocities.
Bate succeeds in presenting the big picture, but many of the specific
episodes are less complete: the international furor over the
lynching of a British merchant is hastily told, as is the wheeling and
dealing among the European powers that allowed Leopold to gain control of the
Congo. The African resistance is not mentioned.
The award-winning book King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochshild is a
must for history buffs or anyone interested in this subject matter. With a
framework similar to Congo's, Hochschild fills in the gap, and then some,
with fascinating details, including one personality oddly omitted from the
documentary, the Rev. William Sheppard. Son of former slaves, this
crusading black American missionary witnessed the rebellion of the Kuba
people against European rule and spoke out against forced labor practices,
which resulted in being sued for libel. Sheppard won. Kent Turner
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