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Elephant's Dream
2014 | Belgium, Congo | NR | 72 min.
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.
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