Film Festival Film #7: 7915 km

[bcholmes]

The backdrop for this documentary involves the Dakar rally -- a car rally that covers various countries in Africa. But the rally is never seen in the film. Instead, we're always in the aftermath of the rally. The film includes a number of stiff interviews with people in small villages. Often they talk about their perceptions of the (mostly European) car drivers. ("They have nothing to do but drive around in their cars", "Ever since the rally came through all of our roads are destroyed", "They gave me a pencil; it's very pretty.")

7915 km is a bit rougher than the big-budget documentaries like Food, Inc, and sometimes it seems slooooooow, but it was interesting.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

huh. you know, n was (and probably still is) big into rally. he loved the dakar rally. maybe next time we talk i'll tell him about this, if i remember.

[silentq.livejournal.com]

I watched Race to Dakar (http://www.racetodakar.com/) a few months ago, they mentioned a little bit about how the rally affects the towns through which it passes. I'm going to check out 7915 km to learn more, thanks for the summary!