Elephant's Dream

A post office clerk waits for customers who never come. Elderly coworkers tend a lonely rail station. Firefighters point dripping hoses at fiery blazes. This hypnotic documentary follows ordinary citizens in Kinshassa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as they go about their jobs in three declining state-run institutions. The traumatic effects of the Congo’s violent history hum through the background of every scene, as the surreal underpinnings of ordinary life are revealed. The gentle humor and courage of people struggling to rebuild their country pack an emotional punch in this critically-acclaimed meditation on a warzone, postwar. “Elephant’s Dream” tenderly and beautifully captures a country in transition—one simultaneously disillusioned and striving toward hope for the future.