Rape has been used as a weapon against the enemy during wartime, pretty much as long as war has been an integral part of the human experience. “The Uncondemned,” an exceptionally well-executed and emotionally heart wrenching documentary about a group of lawyers trying to persecute war criminals for the dehumanizing act of rape, opens with a quote from Genghis Khan claiming that the most devastating blow one can exact on his enemies is to pull their loved ones to one’s bosom (a more poetic way to say “Use the enemy as sex slaves”). As far back as Genghis Khan goes in history, I have a feeling that he got the idea from thousands of years of tradition that came before him.
Rape during war almost never has anything to do with sexual desire. It’s about showing power over the enemy, used as a weapon to demoralize and destroy entire cultures while stealing the futures of the victims. Even though rape was officially deemed to be a war crime in 1918, it wasn’t officially prosecuted as such until a small group of international lawyers brought case to trial in 1997. Yes, the first time official charges of rape as a war crime was brought up in court took place three years after the series premiere of “Friends.”
After the horrific 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the lawyers put their efforts into prosecuting Jean-Paul Akayesu, then-mayor of a Rwandan town, who was in charge of systematically destroying the lives of the Tutsi people through rape. In many ways, “The Uncondemned” is a sister documentary to Joshua Oppenheimer’s haunting masterpieces “The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence.” Like those docs, “The Uncondemned” manages to create a viscerally devastating portrait of the horrors of war simply through talking head interviews that present firsthand accounts of the atrocities in question.
Co-directors Nick Louvel and Michele Mitchell know that a straightforward retelling of this fascinating and emotionally gripping story mostly via interview footage is enough to make an impression on the audience, as they show an impressive amount of narrative restraint while steering clear of sensationalistic reenactments or emotionally manipulative music. Louvele and Mitchell basically spend the entire runtime intercutting between contemporary interviews with the lawyers and the victims, and footage from the 1997 trial.
In doing so, not only do they construct an important documentary on an important subject, but they also manage to create a riveting real-life courtroom drama. Though this is an “issues” film, it will also greatly satisfy fans of the aforementioned genre, with plenty of second act suspense as witnesses are threatened, while the lawyers are set up as underdogs, ridiculed for even attempting a case many are certain will fail, and of course the well-deserved emotional release after the verdict is read during the climax.
The only parts of the doc that might be accused of being manipulative are brief non-interview sections where the directors show the piles of human skulls that were left behind after the bloody fog of the genocide has been lifted. One might ask what these images of death have to do with the act of rape, but I think their existence is a deliberate attempt by the directors to bring up the concept of rape as emotional death. Considering the many horrifying firsthand accounts by the victims found throughout the doc, it’s hard to dispute their claim.
Mitchell is an investigative reporter, and her experience comes in handy as she finds a perfect balance between communicating hard facts and humanizing her subjects. The brief section where the lawyers complain about their less-than-meager accommodations during the trial might seem superfluous at first, but it goes a long way in establishing them as more than straight-laced and humorless lawyer archetypes. Another effective human moment comes during a lively sequence where the victims make fun of their various discomforts as they flew to the trial in order to testify. The way they heartily laugh about their ears popping during the flight, considering the soul-destroying atrocities they had to live through, proves once again the resilience of the human spirit.
Unfortunately, Nick Louvel died last year at the young age of 34. This is tragic in more ways than one, since his work shows the promise of a great up-and-coming documentarian and storyteller. Thankfully Michele Mitchell is still around to bring us more captivating, engaging, and important material like this.
I’ll leave you with a story found in the doc, about the experiences of the rape victims as told by one of the lawyers. After the women were taken in as sex slaves and were raped repeatedly day in and day out, they begged their captors to kill them. The captors refused, telling them their the plan was to have them die with sadness. “That’s what we’re doing,” the women told the lawyer, “We’re dying of sadness.” Sexual assault and rape are serious crimes that often leaven their biggest mark on the victim’s humanity. In a time where we’ve heard excuses that “Boys will be boys” or it’s just “20 minutes of action” or “locker room talk,” if it takes a well-made documentary to remind us of the obvious fact that it’s so much more, so be it. [A-]