My Heart of Darkness

Four war veterans from opposing sides step onto a boat at the mouth of the Kwando River, deep within the African interior. They are on a journey back to the battlefield, the site of the last “great” battle of the Cold War – an inconclusive and very secret Armageddon in which they, as youngsters, once tried to kill each other. But now, twenty years later, they’ve come together as former enemies, a new unit of disparate souls united by their shared tormenting war trauma as well as their need to understand, to reconcile, to forgive. Buried in their baggage each has brought along a box of memories, trinkets from the war, memorabilia. Every veteran has one – little collection of horrible things. Our four are taking theirs back, back to the battlefield to confront their nightmares. Up there somewhere, deep inside the bush, a village awaits them – a ceremony to once and for all cleanse them, rid them of their nightmares, and welcome them back from the war, back into the community. As their boat churns upriver and they wind their way up north, as memories crowd in like the endless savannah on either side of the slowly passing riverbank, our four veterans are introduced – first Marius, the white South African, with his quest to come to terms with nightmares of the enemy soldier he decapitated; then Samuel, from Angola, tormented by the souls of 8000 women accused of witchcraft and burned. Patrick, also from Angola, still sees the head of his best friend being blown off in front of him after saving him from an exploding helicopter. And the fourth, Mario the Bushman, filled with guilt of betraying his own people, the outcast San people, squeezed between all sides of the war. The further they travel up that river, the closer they get to their hearts of darkness, the more enmity and anguish creeps in amongst them like a new hidden enemy, at times unbearable, evasive. Why do I feel so alone, so misunderstood, even with those who share my unspeakable memories? Four men, four stories entwined, four fucked-up lives. Why am I always ready to crack, to strike out even against those I love? Why do I snap awake in the middle of the night, running, sweating, pursued, terrified? Shot against a spectacular backdrop of the African savannah, heaven, and juxtaposed to the veteran’s stark, hellish reality, this is a film of unthinkable suffering, of grotesque bestiality and meaningless violence, of disappointment – but most of all of hope. In the final analysis it may seem impossible to find resolution, to find forgiveness or eventual reconciliation, but underneath all this a strong denominator steers the course of our four veteran’s lives onto a path that will, inevitably, change them forever. The world has gone on to new and different issues, some trying to be solved by the same violent means, but they, these four, are still doing time, are still locked in the psychological purgatory of memory. They may once have moved heaven and earth to see each other dead, but now they’re on the same side: Victims of history, sufferers of PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, together, they are going back to past battlefields, hopeful to find answers for the future as well as trying to rediscover what was taken from them – their humanity.