by Itay Sharon
Most depictions of Africa, particularly those parts still riven by conflict, fall into the poverty po category. A welcome antidote to all the depictions of hellish war and crippling poverty, though, is the increasing presence of African cinema on the world stage, often from surprising places. Cinema gives us a different depiction of Africa, one which can eventually replace the mainstream representations that appear so exploitative. They can also play a part in educating an unknowing public about the reality of lives in poor places. Two films making their way around the festival circuit do this in different ways, one for the Congo and the other for Chad – and represent alternative paths that African cinema might take going forward.
Viva Riva! (Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2010)
Introduced by the director Djo Munga as “The first major feature film to come out of the Congo”, Viva Riva! is obviously influenced by Hollywood, while retaining distinctly Congolese flavours. Riva (Patsha Bay), charismatic, charming and wealthy from selling oil, is on the run from his former Angolan employers. The tensions between the DRC and Angola, recently centred on oil-disputes, are in full evidence, primarily through racism: an Angolan gangster taunts his nemesis by saying: “Congolese nigger...your country is the worst piece of shit I’ve ever seen. Maybe you should have remained colonised”.
What’s particularly refreshing is the way in which the problems of development are dealt with in a matter-of-fact way. Electricity cuts out at the worst moments, prompting audience laughter rather than pity. Kinshasa is depicted as a largely lawless society where everyone and everything has a price. Army generals, police officers and the clergy are all as corrupt as one another, and everyone manipulates in order to survive. Inequality, the immense status material wealth confers and the fluidity of class are all depicted in broad brush strokes: ‘The strongest man in Kinshasa’, a local gangster named Azor, lives in a mansion surrounded by his fleet of cars, army of bodyguards and a superiority complex rooted squarely in his wealth. He refers to Riva as a “peasant” only to find himself broke and powerless soon after, for oil is king in a country that has no royalty, and his success is dependent on his patronage by others.
So far, so individual. But things begin to fall apart: brawling, shooting, and lots more violence and sex follow, but the film loses its focus and identity and isn’t sure where it wants to end up. One scene towards the end that divides me is when Riva finally goes to see his parents and a row ensues over Riva’s disappearance 10 years prior and the death of Riva’s brother. On the one hand, I think Munga leaves this so late in the film that it almost seems out of context and its impact is minimised, but on the other, you realise this is Munga venting his frustration at years of civil war that he largely blames on his parents’ generation. You feel that Viva Riva! could have benefited significantly from dealing with this issue earlier in the film and given it more than just a passing glance. This point is not fully explored enough to make any lasting impact.
Viva Riva! was a big winner at the African Academy Movie Awards recently and has been warmly received by critics, but I am not as convinced. It could have been so much more.
A Screaming Man (Chad, 2010)
This is a significantly superior film to Viva Riva!. Central protagonist Adam, a 55 year old pool attendant and former Central African swimming champion, is living in a bubble. His son works with him and the two share a very close relationship; he loves his job as pool supervisor at a high-end hotel; he loves his wife and seems oblivious to anything that happens around him. Things begin to change when rumours about the privatisation of the hotel are confirmed and Adam is demoted to hotel gatekeeper while his son Abdel takes over as pool supervisor. From here Adam’s growing resentment towards his son takes centre stage: he becomes distant and bitter while making excuses for his demotion, even blaming his pot-belly and doing sit ups to rectify the problem.
Yet, to see A Screaming Man exclusively as a parable about the father/son relationship is to miss the point. Director Mahamet-Saleh Haroun is clearly concerned with the direction his country is taking, drawing links between the privatisation of the hotel and foreign influence, and between the break down of the father/son relationship and the disharmony in the country between the government and the rebels. Haroun cleverly juxtaposes political and domestic worries, playing the tensions at home against the tensions on the streets with the rise of the RJP rebels and the civil war that is simmering in the background. There is even significance in Adam’s refusal to peaceably let go of his job in favour of his son – after all, few African leaders are showing much inclination to relinquish their own grip on power in favour of a younger generation.
Haroun is clearly worried about the divisions that are occurring in his country because of war. We see Chadians fleeing despite the governments and army's efforts to reassure everyone that everything is OK - no one seems to buy it. It rips a family apart, taking Abdel away from his parents, his girlfriend and unborn child. There is one crucial point in the film where we learn that Adam has given Abdel up to the army to fight against the rebels (though Haroun suggests that Abdel would have been forced from his home no matter what). Adam, realising what he has done, loses his senses and defies a government curfew in the hope of being killed, a sort of suicide run. Crucially though, Adam isn’t absolved of his responsibility, at least not in his own mind, and the ending of the film is one of the most moving I’ve seen in many years. His guilt becomes unbearable to the point where Adam journeys across Chad to take his son out of the army.
In very different ways, these two films from parts of Africa not known for their cinematic heritage tell us a great deal about life in places most people will never visit, and do so without the hysteria typical of most media representations. But beyond this, they also point to possible paths of evolution for African cinema, which so far has failed to capture an international audience in the same way as films from say Iran or South Korea have over the past few decades. One way to do so is to produce films which appeal to foreign masses and how better that than to produce films littered with sex and violence, of which Viva Riva! has a healthy dose? These sorts of films however, typically require very large budgets, a barrier to most film producing nations.
Another option is to go down the Iranian route of offering true-to-life accounts, on a smaller scale, of day-to-day occurrences in their respective countries. Films like this have often emerged from intellectual or political movements and function as cultural outlets for the filmmakers and cultural inlets for their audiences. While films like this are never huge box office successes in their domestic markets, they routinely clean-up at film festivals like Cannes, Venice and Berlin, boosting their profile amongst avid film festival goers - a limited but crucial market.
How then do African films mimic this model? The Iranian new wave started in response to intellectual and political movements that were happening (and continue to happen) in Iran. Most films that are part of the Romanian New Wave are set in Ceau?escu’s dictatorial regime of the 1980’s. The regime changes and political movements in North Africa right now could potentially result in the birth of new cinematic movements addressing the previous regimes and not having to deal with censorship (if indeed the changes allow it).
It’s harder to predict the direction of change for Sub-Saharan African cinema. Some directors, like Senegalese auteur Ousamane Sembene, The Father of African cinema, have begun to shape the way foreign audiences view African cinema. He directed Sub-Saharan Africa’s first feature film, Black Girl, in 1966 which, along with Xala, Madabi and Faat Kine, he used to mock the Senegalese bourgeoisie and express disapproval of the government while affirming a message of self-sufficiency and social responsibility. Countries like Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso, with major production capabilities and links to European financing (especially France), will continue to flourish - they have the cinematic traditions and the right conditions to make it happen, but it’s harder to predict in other countries: political upheaval is sudden and brings sudden changes in the cultural scene. Iranian pre-revolutionary cinema, for example, has hardly the same reputation as the post-revolutionary does.
It is certainly promising that countries without a cinematic pedigree to speak of are starting to produce films with significant budgets which are promoted at film festivals around the world. Viva Riva! debuted at the Toronto Film Festival late last year and has already been shown at the Hong Kong and Glasgow Film Festivals this year. A Screaming Man has been to dozens of festivals already from Sao Paolo to Helsinki to Sundance and competed at last year’s Cannes film festival.
What is out of their hands is how people react to their film. Do they take a chance on a new African film or do they see the latest French or Turkish cinema have to offer? Have they made up their minds already about what African cinema is about, or are they willing to let Africans do the talking for themselves?