What Makes Quim Run? (1991)
★★ — What Makes Quim Run? (1991)
A short film produced under the auspices of Angola's Laboratório Nacional de Cinema, this 22-minute work arrives in 1991, sixteen years after Angolan independence and in the midst of the country's long and brutal civil war (which had been running, with only brief interruptions, since 1975). Director Mariano Bartolomeu uses the personal crisis of a jet pilot, Quim, unable to accept the birth of a disabled child, as a framing device for something more explicitly allegorical, a portrait of a nation struggling to reconcile its post-colonial identity with the psychological scars of prolonged conflict. The LNC, established to nurture an Angolan national cinema, operated on extremely limited resources, and productions from this period are rare survivals, making the film a genuinely scarce document of African filmmaking from the era.
This film is like stepping into a time machine, one that accidentally got stuck in the 1950s. Shot with vintage cameras and old-school techniques, it looks and feels like it was made decades earlier than it actually was. That weirdly worked in its favour. It gives everything this gritty, nostalgic charm that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy… but really did. It’s also one of the more competently made low-budget African films I’ve seen lately. The acting is solid, the pacing holds up, and there’s clearly some heart behind the project (even if the story is a little confusing to follow). It tells a story about a fighter pilot, war trauma, and family secrets in post-colonial Angola, which alone makes it worth a watch for anyone interested in Angolan cinema or regional history. But here’s where things get uncomfortable. The film hinges on a deeply problematic premise: the protagonist has a child born with two heads, and instead of treating her with dignity, they call her a "creature," a "monster," and use her deformity as the reason he runs away from home and into the arms of his mistress. That’s not just dated, it’s hurtful, dehumanising, and completely unnecessary to tell the story they were going for. So yes, technically interesting, culturally curious, and occasionally compelling… but weighed down by subject matter that crosses a line. It’s hard to fully recommend it without a big caveat. Worth watching once, just for completionists, but not without some serious side-eye.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 1991 | Watched: 2025-05-23
Related on Movies With Macca
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
