The subject explicitly referenced in the movie title "War Child" is Emmanuel Jal, a former Sudanese child soldier who fought on the side of the Sudan People's Liberation Army during his country's civil war. A youthful witness to the kind of horrors that would send most adults to therapy for the rest of their lives, Jal somehow has managed to make a new life for himself as a successful London-based hip-hop musician. Told through first-person reminiscence, archival footage of Jal as a child and his own lyrics of hope and reconciliation, Jal's harrowing life story makes for an inspirational documentary by C. Karim Chrobog.

Its message? Stay in school. Give a damn. Make art, not war. Never give in. Speak up. Pay it forward.

All of that, of course, is good advice for anyone, whether the battlefields he or she has experienced are literal or metaphorical. Scenes of Jal speaking to students in Anacostia and performing for other, powerfully moved audiences are evidence of that.

But there's another, more implicit "War Child" alluded to in the movie. That's the still-embattled country of Sudan itself, which faces an uncertain future as the southern half of the nation wrestles with possible independence from the north and as fresher, ongoing conflicts flare in Darfur.

Asked whether he has any realistic hope for a peaceful southern Sudan governed by rulers who choose to serve others rather than themselves, Jal pauses, then answers that "time will tell."

Time, yes, along with artists who have the courage and the hard-won maturity to speak -- or, in this case, rap about -- the truth.

-- Michael O'Sullivan (Dec. 5, 2008)

Contains images and discussion of warfare, rape and death.