Without the King

This lively documentary looks at the tiny African nation of Swaziland, one of the last existing absolute monarchies. Director Michael Skolnik gained extraordinary access to both Swaziland’s royal family and its political underground, and delivers an unflinching portrait of a country where life expectancy is the shortest in the world, the rate of HIV infection is the globe’s highest, and thousands subsist on some of the most revolting food imaginable. The king’s clueless eldest daughter, a student at a private college in California, is the object of too much easy mockery, but this is a one-of-a-kind film.