More than a Gangster Film - Viva Riva! (2010)

For those who have never seen an African film before, a great point of entry (that isn't the ridiculous-in-all-the-best-ways Ugandan classic, Who Killed Captain Alex?) would definitely be the 2010 Congolese gangster film Viva Riva! Very little, if any, background knowledge is required for a real enjoyment of this film, which is easily on a par with many Hollywood films of its genre, but it makes the viewing all the more interesting when the uniquely African context is taken into consideration. It was made in 2010, seven years on from the end of the Second Congo war which came to an end in 2003, and shadows of this violent history, as well as the colonial history and its effects, are clearly present in the modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo in which the film takes place.

Poster for Viva Riva! (2010)

The film centres on Riva, a small-time thief who has stolen oil from a dangerous Angolan gangster. He hopes to sell it on for profit in the Democratic Republic of Congo where oil supplies are very scarce. There is a real irony in this premise as the DRC is a very oil rich country, holding one of the largest crude oil reserves in Central and Southern Africa, second only to Angola, yet we see in this film a real scarcity when it comes to the average Congolese person. Where is the oil then? Well, we can presumably take it that, in much the same way as Riva has stolen oil that does not belong to him to sell, colonial powers and wealthy dictators have pillaged and looted the natural resources of Africa to make money that the ordinary person will never see. Richard Dowden, in his book, Africa Altered States Ordinary Miracles, speaks of these resources being “[r]ipped out of Africa” and then “float[ing] gently through the international free market system and com[ing] to rest in the window of a jewellery shop, on the fingers of innocent lovers,” or, perhaps, powering our cars and generating our electricity in the west when the average person living in the country from which the oil came haven’t the ability to do the same. Riva himself comes from this poverty, but after his acquisition of the oil he ends up behaving in a way that isn’t too dissimilar to these so-called ‘big man’ dictators.

Still from Viva Riva! showing Riva with the stolen oil

Filip Reyntjens, in The Second Congo War: More than a Remake, describes the Congo as being a country “where economic actors, often of a mafia-like nature, pursue short-term interests in what often amounts to plundering rather than entrepreneurship.” Viva Riva! offers a take on the oil and its presence as a corrupting force which ultimately destroys all who touch it until it is, in turn, destroyed. We can see this as a metaphor, I think, for the corrupting nature of natural reserves such as oil and diamonds in Africa and the way in which they have been, and continue to be, exploited for profit. This backdrop really lends itself to the gangster genre and creates in Viva Riva! a film that is not only a hugely enjoyable action thriller, but also one that makes a real statement about exploitation and ongoing colonial legacy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Where is the Justice? - Fools (1997)

The 1997 film Fools undeniably occupies an important place in the South African film canon as the first post-apartheid South African film to be directed by a black director, Ramadan Suleman. Despite the setting of the late 1980s, it seems to look thematically at the problems of the past that remain ongoing in post-apartheid South African society, in particular rape.

Poster for Fools (1997)

Mimi, and her fellow South African women and girls, suffered not only not only race based violence, but also gender based violence as a result the systemic oppression of the apartheid system. Audrey McCluskey writes in her book, The Devil You Dance With: Film Culture in the New South Africa, that Fools is a film that seems to “highlight the political marginality of black women without satisfactorily dealing with it.” This is, I think, due to a lack of acknowledgement of the multifaceted and intersectional nature of the oppression faced by black women under the apartheid system, and the ways in which the violence of that oppression continues to play out in a post-apartheid society. It focuses less on the horror and ongoing trauma of Mimi’s rape and the willingness of her mother and the elders (representing society more widely) to overlook it, but instead on the redemption of her rapist, Zamani.

Still from Fools (1997) showing the Elders

The only person who is unwilling to overlook what happened to Mimi is her older sister, who, like Mimi, has very little power to change things. At one point she says, “shame doesn’t mean a thing” and I think this cuts to the core of the issue, because shame, whether in the sense of personal guilt or of public scorn, is not the same as justice. Zamani, through his shame, receives redemption but Mimi, who did no wrong, does not receive the justice she rightly deserves. That which was done to her cannot be undone, and the childhood innocence, bodily autonomy and sense of personal safety that was violently taken from her, by a teacher no less in what should be considered an unforgiveable abuse of power, cannot be restored through mere shame. All those in society who ought to protect her and to fight for her right to justice, fail. And if we look at this as a reflection upon post-apartheid South African society, and the powers of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to achieve justice for victims, it seems to me to be really quite damning. 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 1996

Rory Bester, in his review from the New York African film festival, writes that “[w]hile the narrative raises questions concerning the complicity and culpability of the elders (and, by implication, the community) in Zamani’s actions, it by no means comes anywhere close to capturing the brutality of the culture of silence surrounding rape, a reticence that has for so long gripped South Africa’s townships.” Through the focus on Zamani there is, instead of a challenge to, a perpetuation of Mimi’s marginalisation and therefore of black women and their experiences during and emerging from apartheid. There is no acknowledgement of the intersectionality of the dual oppression they face being both black and female. This film, more so in its omissions than anything else, highlights the lack of justice, not only on a personal level but on a transitional one, there is for black South African women as the society emerges from apartheid. The violence they face, and their silencing and marginalisation, is not something of the past, but something that remains ongoing. Fools is a film that gets very close to the acknowledgement of this reality, but ultimately falls a little short ending up almost complicit in the very issue it seems to want to address. 

Problems of Representation in Flame (1996)

The Second Chimurenga (a Shona language word meaning ‘revolutionary struggle’) took place in Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, between 1967-1979. This conflict, known alternatively as the Rhodesian Bush War, was fought by three major players: the Rhodesian army backing Ian Smith’s white-minority government and two Black revolutionary forces, ZIPRA, the military wing of Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union, and ZANLA, the military wing of future Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union. All parties were in conflict with one another and sought to maintain, in the case of the Rhodesian government, or assume, in the case of ZAPU and ZANU, control of Zimbabwe. By 1975 many guerrilla soldiers, from both the outlawed revolutionary groups, were hiding out and training in newly independent Mozambique where they could evade arrest by the Rhodesian government. It is this conflict, which is explored in far more detail in chapter 6 of Richard Dowden’s book, Africa Altered States Ordinary Miracles, and specifically the camps in Mozambique, that forms the backdrop to Ingrid Sinclair’s 1996 film Flame.

Still from Flame (1996) showing Flame and Liberty

Hinging upon the relationship between two girls, Florence and Nyasha, as they leave their homeland to train with ZANLA and assume new identities as the revolutionaries Flame and Liberty, Flame is as much a film about female solidarity and friendship in a violent, male-dominated environment as it is about the war itself. The film was very controversial upon its release for its depiction of Flame’s rape by a higher ranking soldier; it was deemed to be anti-national and critical of the movement that ultimately toppled the white-minority Rhodesian government. Furthermore, Sinclair was a white British woman who had not lived in the country at the time of the Second Chimurenga, and therefore this film was considered, as Katrina Daly Thompson writes in her book, Zimbabwe's Cinematic Arts : Language, Power, Identity, to be “a prime example of a Zimbabwean story told through white eyes” by many who “thought the first fiction film about Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle should be told by a black Zimbabwean.” The question of representation is a tricky one: not only what should be represented, but how and by who it ought to be represented.

Poster for Flame (1996)

In my opinion, however, Sinclair depicts the violence that Flame faces, both as a result of the war and of the violent men she is surrounded by, as well as the ongoing trauma that she lives with caused by this, in a way that both sensitive to that trauma and hard-hitting for the audience. It is a film that clearly attempts to give a voice to the voiceless, the female revolutionaries upon whom Sinclair based her film. For many of whom the violence and oppression did not end when the war was won, as we see in the film with the abuse Flame’s husband inflicts upon her. Feeling emasculated by her suggestion that she find work, he strikes her and asks “do you think I am a woman?” She responds with defiance, “no, you are a man!” And it is at this point that it becomes clear, both to the audience and to Flame herself, that the only person who has ever supported her and tried to protect her is Liberty. The relationship between the two women, whether subtextually queer coded or one of binding platonic or sisterly love, is defining and it is through it that Flame can finally find freedom from the male violence that has plagued her life.

Questions of representation, then, are very important when it comes to this film, but not to the extent that they might overwrite this key message of the importance of female solidarity in breaking cycles of violence, as well as an acknowledgement of the existence of these ongoing cycles of violence and the ways in which they silence victims, therefore rendering them potentially unable to tell their own stories in a way that would be listened to. That is to say, perhaps a story itself, and its message, is of equal importance to the mode of its representation.

Changing Times - Rafiki (2018)

  “Even in the middle of the day, in middle of the week, the theater was completely packed,” one journalist writes of Rafiki, and this was true across the board upon the film’s short lived controversial Kenyan release. This is undeniably surprising given that the lesbian romance was initially banned by the Kenyan Film Classification Board, for promoting homosexuality, which remains illegal in Kenya under retained colonial-era laws. The film’s director, Wanuri Kahiu, however, appealed this ban and managed to negotiate a week-long release of the film in her home country before its subsequent re-banning. On watching the film it is clear why Kahiu fought so passionately for the right to screen it in Kenya, it is a film that masterfully negotiates a love that is simultaneously sweet, gentle and unassuming and also hugely transgressive and progressive. Even the title, Rafiki, meaning ‘friend,’ in Swahili, alludes to pressure to hide the true nature of the central characters’ same-sex relationship in a society which condemns it – because, of course, the relationship between the two girls is clearly not one of friendship but of romantic love.

Poster for Rafiki (2018)

Rafiki, while at its core a romance, does not shy away from confronting the political burden that it bears, utterly denouncing homophobia and hatred. Early in their relationship Ziki tells Kena that it is her dream to move to London and escape life as a “typical Kenyan girl,” but after their violent outing to a community that does not accept their love, Kahiu devastatingly shows how hatred and bigotry have ripped this dream from Ziki and turned it into a nightmare as she is sent away to London against her will in a particularly gut-wrenching scene where she cries and begs her mother in vain to allow her to stay home in Kenya. She is a “typical Kenyan girl,” just in a different sense; she isn’t really all that different from her peers, it just so happens that she loves another girl rather than a boy. The film’s beautiful colour palette, vibrant colours that fade to pretty pastels when Ziki and Kena are together, further emphasises the normality of their love, despite those who might tell them otherwise. The excitement and joy is as innocent as that of any other first love, and we root for them to have the happy ending that they so deserve. Ultimately, the film opts for a message of hope, not only for Ziki and Kena but, I think, for the future of Kenya itself in terms a shift towards tolerance and acceptance of difference.

Still from Rafiki (2018) showing Kena and Ziki

While the KFCB may not currently be wrong in their assertation that homosexuality is against “the law, the culture and the moral values of the Kenyan people,” Rafiki’s sweeping success amongst young Kenyans (even more notable in a country in which almost three quarters of the population is under the age of thirty) seems to corroborate Richard Dowden’s point in his book, Africa Altered States Ordinary Miracles, that “as the [African] continent becomes more and more connected to the rest of the world, they are being morphed into a new modern African culture. Change, when it comes, need not be slow, even in Africa. It may come within one generation.” It would seem to me that the making, and subsequent success, of Rafiki in Kenya, despite its extremely limited release, is indicative of a turning tide in terms of perceptions of the LGBT community in Kenya, if not Africa more widely. Perhaps in just one generation we might see not only a change in attitude but also in legality, after all, in the words of a young Kenyan interviewed in line to see the film, “there is so much negativity in the world, we shouldn’t fight love.”