Maternal Death by Coincidence is one of a series of mock documentaries about two Dutch morons in Africa. It’s unclear, from the episode itself, it’s part of a series.

But finding out about its format, its part in a series, does slightly change my opinion of it. Coincidence succeeds because the public service announcement bit at the very end comes as a surprise. If it’s just a feature of the episodes, it becomes too familiar and it changes the humor.

On my viewing though—if I can remember back twenty minutes before I read about the rest—it worked fine. It presents itself as being absurdity anti-Africa, only to reveal itself it’s anti-African men and pro-African women. And it sticks to its guns on that issue, which is something.

The acting’s mediocre and the runtime’s way too long. Otherwise, Coincidence is informative and amusing.

Great soundtrack too.

Recommended

CREDITS

Written, produced and directed by Peter Sterk and Fedor van Rossem; “Two Ambassadors” created by Sterk and van Rossem; directors of photography, Mark Witte and Rolf Dekens; edited by van Rossem, Ralf Verbeek and Geert van Schoot; released by MTNL.

Starring Peter Sterk (Peter), Fedor van Rossem (Fedor), Marion Kanu (Marion), Katy Kanu (Heks), Isa Fornah (Isa), Sembe Allosa (Sembe), Michiel Doekes (Dokter) and Wouter Peters (Wouter).