Hubert Sauper’s documentary is about colonialism that never really stopped. He flies from France in a single-engine plane and lands, 4,500km later, in South Sudan. His film buzzes from tribal warriors to US investors, revealing all sides. Chinese oil workers glug Pepsi and lecture on western imperialism. A hero squaddie clears landmines, wondering why “these people aren’t more advanced”. Kids, screaming as missionaries force them into clothes, grow up to pine for a school uniform so they won’t get bullied.
Sauper and his two-man crew fly over a land that’s becoming as alien to its indigenous population as it was (and still is) to those who fancy exploiting it. “The document says the whites comes as friends,” an interpreter tells an elder, suspicious of the film-makers. Sauper is an invader, too, but his trespass is easier to justify.
