20/05/2008

Small killing machines. Possessed robots, perfectly trained for the revolution, drugged and fearless. They are the Liberian child soldiers of Un Certain Regard title Johnny Mad Dog by French director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, making his second feature-length film after debuting with a documentary on the violence in the Colombian city of Medellin.

Producers Mathieu Kassovitz (the actor and director of Hate) and Benoit Jaubert wanted precisely a docudrama approach to this harrowing journey into the country’s infernal civil war, which ended after 14 years in 2003.

Inspired by the eponymous novel by Emmanuel Dongala and the photographs of award-winning war photo-reporter Patrick Robert (which appear at the end of the film), Sauvaire chose some of the protagonists of those horrors, boys aged 13-15, to play themselves in the film. Brainwashed by adults, they were subjected to initiations, drugs and military slogans, and did everything from rape to slaughter, their minds poisoned, convinced that the war was just a huge video game.

In depicting this nightmare, Sauvaire wrote, shot and edited the film in the frenetic style, complete with sped-up images and slow motion, of an American action movie. Only this is the reality of too many countries.

The parallel stories of child soldier Johnny (nicknamed Mad Dog and convinced like his companions that he’s invulnerable to bullets) and the beautiful Laokolé (a teenager whose studies could help her escape the country) entwine for they are both victims of abuse from "adults" and their absurd war.

Shot in Liberia in two months for just €2.3m (78% France, 22% Belgium) the film was pre-bought by Canal + and is being sold by TF1 International.

(Translated from Italian)