Set in Liberia, but in effect in a generic war-torn African country, Sauvaire's harrowing account of a marauding band of boy soldiers bears some echoes of City of God in its depiction of feral anarchy. As in Meirelles's searing masterpiece, the sense of horror arises from manifold sources: the perverse blend of the childlike - one boy sports a pair of angel wings - with the grimly systematic adult military organisation of their assaults, the matter-of-fact way characters intermittently keel over and die, dispatched by unseen enemies, and the utter lack of humanity remaining within the boys, who cannot remember their families and therefore are unable to empathise with the civilians they prey on. It's a hopeless scenario, which leaves even the innocent either dead or emotionally brutalised, but the nihilism is essential to a just portrayal of what news reportage may routinely have to gloss over.7/10
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