Johnny Mad Dog: 3rd Happy Soul Festival: Film Review, Director: Fatima Dupres Griffiths

The docu-drama, Johnny Mad Dog is a powerful and sometimes disturbing portrayal of the brutalities perpetrated by and on the child soldiers of Liberia, from their perspective. Exposing the corruption of Liberian adult armygenerals, we witness their exploitation of hungry, vulnerable youths embodied in the excellent story of 15 year old Johnny who leads a platoon of younger soldiers. Using wits and wiles to survive, we see the dehumanising and criminalizing of the child soldiers, drugged and brainwashed to participate in the barbarities of a war not of their making. The film’s format makes it easy for us to empathise with both the victims of these controlled child soldiers and the children themselves, who having being captured have no choice but to kill or be killed. Their oft recited motto is: “You argue, you dead!”

Awaiting Liberia’s liberation, Johnny and company are themselves unwitting prisoners who descend on a small town where Laokole resides with her disabled father and younger brother. She is determined to keep both her loved ones safe during the violence, rape, capture and death that prevails as Johnny’s deadly gang seize the territory. Eradicating anyone from the Dogo tribe, they kill and torture victims, telling them: “If you cry, you die.”

Characters like No Good Advice and Small Devil gleefully fulfil their gruesome mission to rule the city and get the President out of power. Members of the Small Boy Unit believe in their slogan: No retreat, no surrender. Commonly known and feared as the Death Dealers, these drugged and drunk child soldiers repeat the brutal truth they’ve been taught: “You don’t want to die? Don’t be f***ing born!” Focusing on the atrocities committed in Liberia, and the often untreated post traumatic syndrome resulting from war and torture, the film informs us of the evils of war and the courage of ordinary girls like Laokole. She buried her father, kept seeking for her lost brother, and stood up fearlessly to Johnny Mad Dog even after he tried to intimidate her and indoctrinate her with brutal, brainwashed survival tactics. Showing the underbelly of a life plagued with torture, suffering and loss of innocence, Johnny Mad Dog shows moments of tenderness, humanity and ultimately the courage of ordinary individuals whose sense of decency and justice will not be compromised.

Through archive footage of Martin Luther King’s speeches regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, we too feel that a hundred years later, “the Negro is still not free, living on a lonely island of poverty.” Set against the backdrop of rap music and the melancholic and haunting rendition of Nina Simone singing Strange Fruit, this thought provoking film asks who are the real victims and who are the true freedom fighters of war?