Camp de Thiaroye (1988) poster
1988 · drama · war

Camp de Thiaroye

Directed by Thierno Faty Sow, Ousmane Sembène2h 34m1988
ElsewhereIMDb7.7622RT100%TMDB7.522
  • heavy
  • measured
  • intense
  • bleak
Movie DNA

Heavy, measured, measured drama / war, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

A Senegalese platoon of soldiers from the French Free Army are returned from combat in France and held for a temporary time in a military encampment with barbed wire fences and guard towers in the desert. Among their numbers are Sergeant Diatta, the charismatic leader of the troop who was educated in Paris and has a French wife and child, and Pays, a Senegalese soldier left in a state of shock from the war and concentration camps and who can only speak in guttural screams and grunts.

Our read · Camp de Thiaroye (1988) reads as a heavy, measured, grounded drama · war entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Camp de Thiaroye

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a landmark African film about WWII tirailleurs betrayed and massacred by their French commanders.

ends devastatingit will wreck youa slow buildgrips by minute 25attention 4/5feels its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violence

Skip it tonightYou cannot watch colonial betrayal and the slaughter of returning soldiers.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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