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.”