MY NEIGHBOUR, MY KILLER
US/France, 2009, 80 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Anne Aghion.
Anne Aghion has made a film about Nicaragua in the past and Antarctica in the present. In the meantime, for nine years, she has been filming on and off in Rwanda and produced three hour-long documentaries on the aftermath of the1994 genocide. This time she has made an 80 minute film on the Gacaca Tribunals set up by the Rwandan government in 2001 where open air hearings bring the accused and the survivors together, with 'citizen-judges who try their neighbours and rebuild the nation'. Is this possible?
The crew spent much of the time between 2003 and 2008 in the village of Gafumba taking 350 hours of footage. Clearly, there is a great deal of material where the women remember and still grieve. One woman says that her seven children were killed in front of her and her baby torn from her back and beaten to death. They let her live because she had become a person of suffering and sorrow and would die. How can this be forgiven?
Several of the Hutu killers also speak, describing their guard tours around their villages to suppress the Tutsis or admitting the atrocities they committed. We hear some of the sentences and the reasons, the appeals for clemency and the release of those who had served their sentences.
Where this film is more powerful and horrifying than most is not in the presentation of violence – no visuals, only verbal descriptions – but in the reality of gazing with the camera lens at the testimonies of the men and women on both sides, listening to the stories, knowing that nothing can be undone and always puzzling on how the burdens of grief and the burdens of guilt can be reconciled.
No white person appears on screen. There is no voiceover. Yes, it is edited, but it is also well-documented testimony.
1.The impact of the film? The documentation of Rwanda?
2.Audience knowledge of Rwanda, the 90s, the genocide? The role of the Hutus and the government? The massacre of three-quarters of the Tutsi population? The cruelty, the machetes? The stealing of cattle and land? The role of the United Nations, the world standing by?
3.The aftermath, the new government? The decision in 2001 to set up the Gacaca tribunals? Hearings held in the open, in the villages? The citizens becoming judges, trying their neighbours for the crimes, helping to rebuild the nation? The sittings over several years?
4.The number of prisoners? Their being in jail for years? Their being tried? The sentences, clemency?
5.The title, the reality of Hutus killing Tutsis? Within villages? Within families?
6.The director being unobtrusive, five years in filming in the village, the amount of material to be edited? Her keeping in the background? There being no voice-over but the Africans speaking for themselves?
7.The long takes, the opportunity to look at the women speaking, to listen to them, to listen to them talking to each other? The men, their being questioned? Interviews, their speeches before the tribunals?
8.The women, their suffering, the deaths of their children? Their living with grief? Their not wanting to live? Knowing the murderers? The question of whether they could forgive them or not? The mother and her baby being beaten, her being left alive as a woman of sorrows and suffering?
9.The men, the man describing his tours of duty in the village? The man denying that he was responsible for the deaths and the women saying that he was lying? The man in the tribunal and his admitting what he did?
10.The officials, the explanation of the tribunals? The judges, the sentences?
11.The cumulative effect of experiencing this testimony?
12.The model of the tribunals, some kind of forgiveness, some kind of reconciliation, some kind of rebuilding? In view of the tragedies and massacres in Africa in the 21st century?
