Operation Turquoise (2007) Reviews

With the controversial 2007 docudrama Operation Turquoise, French director Alain Tasma (October 17, 1961) travels back in time by thirteen years to revisit the fateful events wrought by his country in April 1994. That month, France undertook the U.N.-backed "Operation Turquoise" - ostensibly a noble mission designed to insert a neutral force that would protect all groups (regardless of ethnicity or background) from annihilation. Severe and violent complications erupted, however, when the rebel Tutsi regime automatically expressed mistrust of French given France's past support of the genocidal Hutus. With a stark resistance to sentimentality, Tasma intercuts several semi-fictionalized substories at the core of the fray. These include: an innocent French photographer and journalist who automatically draw contempt and threats given their Gallic identities; a seriously confused and troubled school instructor who massacres his students and then lyrically quotes a French poet; a group of Kigali veterans frustrated at their inability to make a difference; and many others. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi