“For a film built on a long history of unfathomable violence and its lasting legacy, Tommy Guns feels admirably modern, playful, and even radical in parts.”

Playing like a surrealist update on Claire Denis’ White Material (2009), a non-linear masterpiece on the disintegration of colonialism in an unnamed African country, Carlos Conceição’s ambitious and enigmatic Golden Leopard contender Tommy Guns begins in 1974, just one year before Angola’s independence from decades of Portuguese colonization. The original title of the film, Nação Valente or The Valiant Nation, is provocatively ambiguous in this context: there is little valor on display in this violent film, yet each side involved in the bloody war of independence considers their own struggle to be noble and heroic. Young Portuguese soldiers fight to defend their “overseas districts” while Angolan nationalists try to reclaim their land, and it is never spelled out which nation the title really refers to. Thanks to such nicely calibrated uncertainties, Tommy Guns works primarily as a sophisticated exploration of militarism, tyranny, and the continued relevance of colonialist discourses rather than a conclusive wartime epic with clearly marked heroes and enemies. This superbly crafted and consistently surprising effort should significantly boost Conceição’s profile as a talent to watch and should travel widely on the festival circuit following its launch in Locarno.

It’s better to know as little as possible about Tommy Guns in advance since Conceição serves up plenty of surprises in the second half of the film. The first half hour follows a young tribal girl named Tchissola, who has a sensual encounter with a Portuguese soldier near her village; a white woman whose house is invaded by the nationalists at night; and the mourning rituals following the death of a local young man. If Conceição’s unwillingness to commit to a straightforward narrative may alienate some viewers at first, a more compact and constrained storyline emerges soon after the title card belatedly appears on screen. The rest of Tommy Guns chronicles the experiences of a small group of Portuguese soldiers, completely cut off from the outside world, blindly following the brutal orders of their commander in the name of serving their country. Native voices from the first part of the film are nowhere to be found in this military settlement, which in itself reveals a lot about the persecution of the locals in Portuguese hands. Sudden bursts of violence act as punctuation marks in the otherwise routine daily existence of the soldiers while dreamlike (and occasionally nightmarish) interludes break the monotony of this “phantom war” (the soldiers are not quite aware of why or against whom they are fighting at this late stage). Particularly notable are an underwater sequence loaded with religious iconography and leading to the unexpected discovery of an artwork, and a tense dance scene in which the rare arrival of a female visitor unbalances the squad in an irreversible manner.

Given the historical and geographical specificity of the set-up, the lack of political contextualization may initially seem frustrating. Tommy Guns clearly is not a dry history lesson about Angolan independence; but the absence of any information about the colonial period, different parties involved in the war, or the backgrounds of the characters can keep the viewers at bay for a while. However, as the film progresses, the intricacy of Conceição’s design becomes more apparent – by withholding crucial information about the characters and avoiding expository sequences that introduce the setting, Conceição intentionally points at the cyclical nature of violence and nationalistic aggression, reminding us that colonialism continues to haunt our so-called “post-colonial” present in many ways.

Most of the film can be described as a nocturnal odyssey, which provides ace cinematographer Vasco Viana with ample opportunities to design memorable tableaux in the scarcity of daylight. The other crucial contribution comes from sound designer Rafael Gonçalves Cardoso, who makes great use of the natural soundscape in order to turn lengthy passages without dialogue into immersive excursions into the dense and threatening Angolan forest. The ensemble is uniformly excellent and features many striking faces even though the screenplay intentionally refuses to give the actors much to work with.

As Tommy Guns takes bold leaps into supernatural genre territory, it becomes equally possible to read it as a powerful allegory or simply give up on its symbolism. Conceição’s big twist may lead to unanswered questions and some plot holes, but also has considerable political resonance and even a not-insignificant dose of poetry. For a film built on a long history of unfathomable violence and its lasting legacy, Tommy Guns feels admirably modern, playful, and even radical in parts.