Tommy Guns
Directed by Carlos Conceição
Angolan-Portuguese director Carlos Conceição’s audacious and enigmatic Tommy Guns invokes the ghosts of Angola’s colonial past while embracing the symbolic power of genre filmmaking. The story begins in 1974, just one year before the country’s independence from decades of Portuguese rule. Wealthy colonists are fleeing the country as Angolan revolutionaries gradually claim their land back. A tribal girl discovers love and danger when her path crosses that of a Portuguese soldier. Another group of soldiers, completely cut off from the outside world, blindly follow the brutal orders of their commander in the name of serving their country. But nothing stays fixed in this genre-shifting cinematic puzzle, which playfully swerves from art house drama to war film to zombie flick to escape thriller with exhilarating control. Winner of Best European Film and the Youth Jury Award at the Locarno Film Festival, Tommy Guns has elicited comparisons to the work of Claire Denis, Miguel Gomes, and even M. Night Shyamalan, and announces a bold and exciting new voice in Portuguese and Angolan filmmaking.
Reviews
“A horror-tinged nightmare that nods to the sprawling impact of colonialism across eras.”
"Shape-shifting drama which brims with visual intrigue"
"Mystifying, unsettling, enigmatic, and shapeshifting...A genre-fluid headtrip."
"Blazingly confident. Juggles arthouse and genre tropes with persuasive dexterity.”
“A bold new voice in Portuguese as well as Angolan cinema.”
“There is a Beau Travail-esque alertness to male beauty as well as to the moral uncertainty and psychological decay that can ripple beneath a tanned, taut, camo-clad torso.”
“Superbly crafted and consistently surprising.”
“Embraces genre cinema’s more exciting aspects with gleeful exuberance.”
