White Shadow
This could have strayed close to 1962 ‘documentary’ Mondo cane or its dubious descendants, exploiting tribal customs through Golden Bough exoticism. Thankfully Israeli filmmaker Noaz Deshe has the technique to avoid these trappings in White Shadow, which exposes the practice where albinos are hunted for body parts, to be used in African tribal potions purported to have restoratives effects. We exist among its protagonists: close-up shots peer over shoulders at the preyed upon Alias, a Tanzanian boy bleached of colour – a blood and bone commodity.
The premise would make for a wonderful high-concept dystopian thriller, if that was not grossly insensitive to the chilling truth. Instead, Deshe uses a vérité style, a kind of surreal naturalism, which shows our world to be as strange and horrifying as any fiction. White Shadow exists on the periphery, often filmed in a ghostly half-light. Alias is a similarly twilight presence. While metaphorically significant this enigmatic approach dilutes our empathy. This is a confrontational but disjointed work, challenging in theme and languid in pace. Deshe has an artist's eye for capturing exceptional imagery, just not a storyteller's inclination to sew them into a tight narrative whole.
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White Shadow screens at Filmhouse 2 Apr in association with Africa in Motion
The screening will be introduced by Justine Atkinson, Director of Aya Distribution http://www.filmhousecinema.com/showing/white-shadow-mar15