SYNOPSICS
Laduma: Benin's Journey (2011) is a English movie. Richard Shepherd has directed this movie. Anicet Behanzin,Romuald Boco,Adrian Healey are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2011. Laduma: Benin's Journey (2011) is considered one of the best Documentary,Biography,Sport movie in India and around the world.
The film follows the underdog national soccer team of the poor West African nation of Benin (known as The Squirrels) as they try to reach the 2010 World Cup Finals in South Africa, the first ever on African soil. The film follows 5 players on the team, young men crossing the continent to play, suffering tragedy and enjoying good times. The film examines the role of football in community building and whether this process of these young men discovering their continent can help lead to a pan-African spirit and unity. The film also introduces the fascinating country of Benin, its tragic slave trade history, its historical importance as the center of the kingdom of Dahomey, its renown as the birthplace of voodoo (the film visits voodoo shrines, including the most powerful in the country), its landscapes and wildlife, its people, and its music and dance.
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Laduma: Benin's Journey (2011) Reviews
Interesting story, up-gradable told
"Laduma: Benin's Journey" focuses on the Benin national team's effort to qualify for the World Cup 2010, the first one held on African continent, in South Africa. It follows the different qualification games and provides further information about Benin itself as well as interviews with some of the more popular players and their lives. I think that I saw a somewhat cut version of this film, as the screen time on this page is roughly half an hour longer than the one of the version I watched. Maybe it is also due to this that sometimes the jumps between the sequences seemed a bit rough and were lacking a better narrative. As it is, you mostly see the games or let's say the highlights of the games, spiced with some of the most important facts according to the possible qualification and some things that don't really make sense, like the producers running some voodoo procedure. All in all especially the information about Benin and maybe also the opponents seems to be collected quite randomly here and there and the film would have benefited from an earnest introduction into the realities of a country most people know close to nothing about. All in all what keeps the film interesting is the interesting story it picked. It fails in providing a narrative to connect the single elements and that sometimes brought me out a bit. An interesting attempt but also one that leaves quite some potential.