It is 1974, the year before Angola claimed independence from Portugal, and in an atmosphere of mounting tension, a tribal girl embarks on a tryst with a classics-reading Portuguese soldier.
This is only the beginning of Carlos Conceição's complex, genre-bending exploration of machismo and the legacy of colonialism, which takes on elements of zombie horror, speculative fiction and military drama as it shifts to follow a small squadron of young Portuguese soldiers being prepped by a relentless martinet of a colonel for a war they scarcely understand. Broodingly, evocatively shot, with a slow-burn intensity makes the revelations and twists of its second half all the more surprising, the story may begin decades ago, but it says a whole lot about strongmen leaders and the rise of nationalism today.
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