Rowan Sullivan

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Bigman Wahala – Pan African Film Festival 2020

Bigman Wahala is an enjoyable road-trip comedy with commercial appeal that focuses on the unlikely relationship between a poor taxi driver and a wanted former government official on the run. It never takes itself too seriously and even gets away with poking a bit of fun at both the ‘Bigman’ and military governments as well as the gullibility of the public.

Bigman Wahala starts with Honest, our friendly taxi driver, stuck in a traffic jam in Accra. The frantic John Woo style cutting rapidly builds pressure until Honest spots a gap in the traffic and races on home. It’s a sign that this road-trip comedy will be filled a few bursts of tense energy to propel it forward.

The next comes when an armed jeep full of soldiers carrying assault rifles descends on the Government building to stage a successful coup d’état. Like the opening traffic scene, the attack is full of fast cuts that cross the usual 180 boundaries of Hollywood cutting which makes it appear very chaotic. However, the insurgents win a quick victory that seems a bit too easy – perhaps a satirical jab at how many coups there have been in Western Africa over the last years. It’s presented as something a bit too familiar. Nevertheless, the insurgents quickly assume control of the airwaves and order all former government officials to report to their nearest police station. This is when we start following ‘Bigman’ Joseph, the former minister of the health department and follow his attempt to escape the country.

Our Bigman is comically selfish. As soon as he hears the news, he leaves his wife to collect his huge stash of money from the safe in his office. Whilst he’s there, some insurgents arrive to look for him, so he escapes through the back entrance and jumps into the nearest taxi, which just so happens to be driven by Honest. This kicks off a light buddy road trip movie between Bigman Joseph and Honest, as Honest helps Bigman to escape the country on lockdown.

Whilst the ending undermines the class boundaries which define the rest of the film in its’ we’re all human message, Bigman Wahala for the most part is a fun road trip comedy built on the classic Fish Out of Water and How the Mighty Have Fallen tropes.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

202

Verde – Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) 2020

If you’re looking for transcendental film from Dominican Republic, the ritualized pacing of Verde carries the fire lit by Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias’ Cocote.

Verde is the first feature film set in Dajabon, a small region in the Northwest of Dominican Republic that borders Haiti. Like Cocote, the setting contains the streams, forests, and grassland that color the interior of the country instead of the pristine beaches and resorts you’d find in tourist brochures. It’s an open environment, a long way from sweltering urban Santo Domingo situated on the opposite side of the country. Here, the outside blends with the inside as the heat and sounds permeate through the walls and open doors of everyone’s houses. Because of Dajabon’s distance from the cities, there aren’t any signs of government of authority. Spiritual leaders and gangsters have taken their place as indigenous customs hold a similar power to the church and the gangs’ tit-for-tat retribution rules.

This has consequences for the three protagonists who’s attempted heist of a gold mine goes wrong. They don’t go to the police to hand themselves in, as there are no signs of the police here. Instead, they have to answer for their actions with the locals. They also don’t go to the church to ask for forgiveness, instead choosing to visit a shaman for a ritual to cleanse their sins. However, as their silence reveals, they already know the fate waiting for them.

Their march towards their inevitable deaths, payment for the man they killed during their attempted robbery, is reflected in the slow tempo of the film and their silence. Every shot, as common in transcendental cinema, lingers for longer than it needs to, forcing you to observe the characters for longer. With more time, Carmelo’s silence becomes more obvious and his actions appear more deliberate. He has the most screen time but does the least with it. His silence appears to honor the dead and repent for the crime he committed. His actions also appear willed by a feeling of guilt. However, he doesn’t appear to be in control, as if he has already given up his body to someone else. It gives the sense that he has already embraced his ultimate fate and is mourning for himself as well as the others.

In this way, Verde fits closest to Schrader’s meditative segment of transcendental film. It’s not simply observing the characters like a surveillance camera, and it’s not focusing solely on the look of the film. Instead Verde employs its slow tempo to hold viewers in a trance like state through the chapters of the film. We follow Carmelo’s repentant march through Dajabon and in it we are given time to reflect on our own lives as we move with him closer to our fate.

Verde is an impressive debut feature that you should look out for at a festival near you.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

203

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret – PAFF 2020

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret takes us back to Jaki’s childhood living in a coastal African town with his Granma, family, and friends. There’s no sign of school or any other schedule filling activities for young Jaki, so he creates his own entertainment with his friends Pi and Charlita. They start investigating the construction site of a huge mausoleum guarded by Russian soviets. Their innocent adventures uncover the Russian’s plot to demolish their neighborhood, so they plan to foil it by setting off their secret explosives.

Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret revolves around Jaki’s childhood in the 1980s. The characters give the film (and award winning African novel by Ondjaki) its flavor. There’s Jaki and his two friends, a trio of innocent adventurers that Americans will recognize from many 1980s U.S. films such as The Goonies or E.T. There’s a loving Granma that never loses her spirit even when her toe is covered in gangrene. You’ll also meet two foreigners fighting for her company in a Portuguese speaking Russian and a Spanish speaking Cuban doctor. None of the characters are threatening or unfriendly, even ‘Sea Foam’, the only homeless man in the film is friendly and happy. It creates the kind of neighborhood you wished you grew in.

The film is also told in flash back, of an older Jaki reminiscing on his childhood. This flash back narrative adds to films saudade, a classic feeling in Portuguese language novels and films which describes feelings of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia for an object that you’ll probably never have again. In this case, it’s Jaki’s saudade for his happy and innocent childhood. The director emphasizes his good memories by coloring the memories of his childhood town in warm pastel colors and filling the story with only happy memories. Eradicating the greys and downplaying the threat of the Soviet construction work and the absence of Jaki’s parents keeps the story positive in a way that only a person looking back on their life with saudade could.

Whilst I haven’t read Ondjaki’s novel, João Ribeiro’s adaptation is a heart warming coming of age story told through the rose tinted lenses of Jaki looking back on his childhood.

Head to our Pan African Film Festival Hub for more reviews from PAFF 2020.

204

Ekoua – Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) 2020

Ekoua is an ambitious animated dystopian film from Cote d’Ivoire featuring a Hero’s Journey story which unfortunately loses itself in exposition.

Visually, the 3D animation looks like it’s still in the development stage. Many animated objects are incomplete or forgotten about, such as a waiter carrying a tray with her arms by her side. More objects unnaturally cross spatial boundaries, such as a the baby’s legs blending into the crib it’s lying in when they move.

There’s also an unnecessary amount of shots in which characters are traveling from A to B either by walking or in cars. These shots are usually lengthened either side of the shot to show characters frozen still before and after they’ve started traveling. It adds time to a film which doesn’t need it. It reminded me of watching someone play a long game of Sims.

You could fault the criticisms above on a lack of funding or animated capabilities. Animated African films are rare compared to the number of animated films produced in North America and Asia. Ekoua is an ambitious attempt at creating a new dystopian world through animation. However, even with the limited animation capabilities, a complex storyline makes Ekoua hard to love.

At the start of the film, Ekoua sets itself up as a potential satire by introducing a dystopian world ruled by scammers. However, the scammer dystopia set up in the opening is never explained. The only scammers we see are two brightly dressed men that make it rain in clubs, and suspiciously keep following Ekoua for no apparent reason. Instead of exploring the scammer dystopia, Ekoua alters direction to follow a narrative of Ekoua becoming a ‘seer’ and eliminating an evil baby.

From there the film felt like a slow crazy dream. Here’s an outline of a portion of the plot I understood:

  1. Ekoua becomes a seer thanks to an elder.
  2. She has a vision that informs her that her neighbors newborn baby is an evil spirit reincarnated and that she must eliminate it to avoid repeating the same mistakes her mum made.
  3. Scammers chase Ekoua and beat her up.
  4. Ekoua takes the evil baby.
  5. Royal police show up and guide Ekoua to the capital with the evil baby.
  6. A band of mutated hyenas led by a mutant elephant named Koffi stop them and steal the baby.
  7. Ekoua tracks the band of mutants to their hideout and recovers the baby.
  8. Ekoua and the royal policeman move on to the capital.

Then the plot gets confusing.

Overall, Ekoua could do with a bit more simplicity. The story has a lot of different strands (scammer world, Ekoua’s mum, visions, hero’s journey) that make it hard to follow. With a more focused script and more budget to improve the animation, Ekoua would instantly improve.

205

Subira – Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) 2020

Subira is a well meaning film about a black Muslim girl from a small coastal town that is sold off into marriage to an Indian man in the city. However unfortunately it’s let down by a desire to create a happy ending at all costs.

Subira is her fathers favorite child. He takes her out to sea with him and lets her play with her friends in the street. In contrast, her mother wants her to stay in the house and stay away from boys to prepare her for a good marriage. So it’s no surprise that when her father dies in a freak accident, she’s married off quickly to a rich Indian man from Nairobi.

Life in Nairobi is completely different to her life living along the coast. Nairobi is a suffocating urban environment, which the director emphasizes through the high rise buildings, cafes full of people, and private rooms. In her husband’s home she’s also expected to cook, sew, and take care of the house overseen by her husband’s uncle. Her new strict uncle-in-law and the unfamiliar environment work together to build her longing for her dead father and her past freedoms at home. Forbidden to leave the house without permission, she starts to covertly attend swimming classes in the city to get closer to her sea-faring father.

When she’s found taking swimming lessons behind her husband’s back, Subira escapes the wrath of her uncle and husband by running back to her home by the sea. Her escape is her liberation. At home she can be who she wants without having to fulfill her husband or uncle’s expectations. Ending the film with her escape would have been a victory for an independent woman fighting against a fiercely patriarchal society.

Instead, the film keeps going, intent on securing a ‘happy ending’ between Subira and her husband. The problem is, the director doesn’t give the audience any reason to expect the husband will change. When Subira leaves, he screens all of her calls, and doesn’t try to do anything to win her back. He expects her to return, after all he is the man who picked her out of poverty to share his wealth. Ultimately, Subira is the one leading the attempts to get back together, which I felt undermined her choice to run away and liberate herself. It’s a well-meaning happy ending, but it would have been more powerful if she had chosen her own independence.