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Absent Present – One Man Disappears in a Documentary About Migration

Absent Present Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Why Watch Absent Present?

If you’re a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History
To uncover the mystery behind a missing person, like Luis Ospina’s A Paper Tiger
To examine the legacy of colonization and slavery on African migration

From: Germany, Namibia, Europe, Africa
Watch: Trailer, IMDb
Next: A Paper Tiger, A Storm Was Coming, Little Dieter Needs to Fly

It’s All About How the Story is Told

Angelika Levi’s Absent Present is one well made documentary. If you’ve ever listened to an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s equally well constructed Revisionist History you’ll find similarities with Angelika Levi’s documentary method. Like Revisionist History, Levi starts with an event – in this case the disappearance of her friend Benji – and unravels the threads linked to it to uncover a whole chain of associations from colonialism to migration. Having explored more of the threads linked to Benji’s life, we see his disappearance in a new light.

Uncovering the Mystery by Looking at the Big Picture

Benji’s disappearance is a mystery that Levi tries to unravel by following his path. Born in Namibia, he was one of many young Namibian children that were brought to the GDR (German Democratic Republic otherwise known as East Germany) having survived the Cassinga Massacre (a South African bombing raid on Namibian independence fighters). He spent 11 years in East Germany from ages 3-14 at an orphanage and German school, and became a naturalized East German citizen. However, in 1989 the GDR collapsed, East and West Germany reunified, and Namibia gained its independence. As a result, Benji was sent back to Namibia despite having grown up in Germany. Back in his birth country, Benji was kidnapped by Angolan soldiers and forced to join their liberation struggle. He managed to escape and returned to Europe disguised as a tourist. He eventually made it back to Germany, but disappeared a few years later. Levi travels from Germany to Namibia and back to Germany in Benji’s footsteps to try and investigate his disappearance. But ultimately, as she retraces his steps she finds the foot prints of more African refugees in Senegal and Spain and starts to uncover the hypocrisy of anti-immigration policies. By following the footsteps of migrants like Benji, Levi gives us a look at the big picture, which gives us a context to help explain Benji’s disappearance.

The Hypocrisy of Anti-Immigration Policy

Levi starts her broader investigation with the Columbus monument in Barcelona, a grand 19th century column that celebrates the discovery of the New World. At the top, Columbus points towards his ‘discovery’, a world where Columbus received gifts of welcome and from which Spain gained incredible wealth and prosperity. The hypocrisy of the monument is that it celebrates a migrant that crossed oceans in search of wealth, whilst today the same country that benefited from the wealth of other continents turns away migrants with similar intentions.

Levi also highlights the underlying racism behind Spain’s treatment of African migrants in the Canary Islands, juxtaposing images of white tourists relaxing on beaches and running through woods with images of Africans detained in camps just meters from tourist hot spots. The fact that these camps, that almost specifically hold African migrants, are built on the foundations of former slave camps makes it all the worse. Seen in this context, it’s not surprising that Benji tries to return to Europe disguised as a tourist with bleached hair. For Benji, and the African migrants that are detained in Spain, Europe is the only option left in their attempt to survive. It’s “Barcelona or Barsaak” (the Wolof for land of the dead). Viewed in its historical context, the anti-immigration policies of Europe look like an evolution of the legacies of slavery and colonialism. The Africans were forcibly brought to Europe and the Americas as slaves, forcibly exploited in colonialism, and now they are forcibly shut out of the riches their work and land created, detained as migrants.

Whilst the big picture Levi uncovers in Absent Present doesn’t answer why Benji disappeared, it does connect Benji’s forcible removal from his home country, and forcible repatriation to a brutal history of exploitation. It uncovers a hypocritical and racist history that takes African bodies when they’re needed and discards them when they’re not. Seen in this context Benji’s disappearance is not a mystery, but a symptom of the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and illegal immigration.

What to Watch Next

If you’re looking for another documentary that attempts to find a missing person, check out Luis Ospina’s A Paper Tiger. It tries to track down a Colombian artist named Manrique Figueroa by interviewing all the friends he left behind.

Or if you’re looking for more films in which migration and colonialism are a major topic I’d recommend exploring the following:

Atlantics – a feature film from Senegal that conveys the impact of a lost generation venturing north on their friends and family back at home.
Tenere – a documentary that tracks migrants crossing the Sahara desert on the back of Mad Max style converted trucks in Niger in quests to reach Europe.
A Storm Was Coming – a documentary that artistically represents how the Spanish Empire erased the indigenous cultures of Equatorial Guinea.

Or if you’re just looking for more documentaries narrated in English by great German film makers, check out Werner Herzog. His film, Little Dieter Needs to Fly is a great place to start. It’s a film about the life of a German war survivor that becomes a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Batuque (Cape Verde) – Hear the Music that Defines a Nation

Batuque Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Do you want to go to Cape Verde? Whilst you won’t see the lush beaches in this film, you’ll hear the sounds and soul of the island. Plus you’ll have an amazing Batuque band to tour you around! For a trip to Cape Verde for the price of lunch, watch this film here (Amazon).

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Why Watch Batuque?

It’s the best way to experience Cape Verde without paying for a flight
If you love music
To learn about Cape Verdean history
Meet some of Batuque’s biggest stars

The Breakdown

The film starts with a Batuque band called Raiz di Tambarina playing at a local wedding. All the band members are dressed in white for the occasion and sit in an almost complete circle with a dancer in the middle. They keep the percussion and the vocals going whilst the lead vocalist (hidden in the circle) leads them in their call and response style singing.

As you’ll see, Batuque is alive and well in Cape Verde. However, it’s had a troubled history. Under colonial times in the 1800s the Portuguese attempted to eradicate all forms of black culture. As a result, Batuque was outlawed so ‘honest hardworking folk would not be misled.’ These backwards laws weren’t overruled until the 1970s when independence was finally granted. Raiz di Tambarina (the band in the film) are an example of how intertwined the genre is with Cape Verdean culture. The band, like many of the Batuque stars today, started whilst under prohibition, and like the genre, have outlived it’s persecution.

In addition to the music and history of Batuque, this documentary also shows us life in Cape Verde by following the band members as they go about their day jobs. One of them buys fish from the port to sell inland whilst another is a truck driver. At one point in the film, whilst at the fish market, a group forms spontaneously and starts singing and drumming Batuque with anything ready to hand. The spontaneity shows how ingrained Batuque is into the culture of Cape Verde. It has survived slavery and colonisation and is now a celebrated part of Cape Verde.

Conclusion & What to Watch Next

Batuque is more than a film about Batuque music. Instead, it uses Batuque music to tell the story of Cape Verde: it’s history, people, and culture. You’ll hear the music that defines the nation, before you meet the people behind it and follow them at their ‘day-jobs’. Batuque is an arm-chair traveler’s guide to Cape Verde.

For another musical exploration, go visit the sound of the Democratic Republic of Congo courtesy of the Kasai Allstars. It took home the Best Picture at the African film awards in 2017 and won the Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Read more here and go watch it here (Amazon).

Or, if you’re interested in seeing more creative ways of telling the history of a nation, check out The Missing Picture. It tells the story of a Cambodian family looking for a missing picture of their relative lost in the Cambodian genocide. Read more here or go watch it here (Amazon).

Guiana 1838 (Guyana) – Slavery Wasn’t Abolished in 1833

Guiana 1838 Film Difficulty Ranking: 2

Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, but was it enforced? In Guiana 1835 you’ll see that slavery was replaced with another form of slavery: indentured servitude. If it’s available you can find the film here on Amazon or here on YouTube (with audio errors).

Why Watch Guiana 1838?

Learn about slavery and indentured servitude in Guyana – the educational video style interruptions in the opening 30 minutes of Guiana 1838 will give you a quick understanding!
See what happened to freed slaves in Guyana
Witness the whole process of the Indian indenture system
If you think the British Empire is something to be proud of

The Breakdown

Guiana 1838 starts with 2 white men on horses patrolling a sugar cane plantation full of black workers. He singles out one of the workers for questioning. When he doesn’t get a response, he takes the black worker to the whipping pole.

At this point, the film jumps to one of a handful of educational-video style interruptions to teach you about the start of the slave trade. In a few minutes, it gives you a brief low-down on how it started, why it started, and a few of the figures calling for abolition.

Then, jumping back to the dramatisation, one of the younger slaves overhears a man from Britain telling the slave owner that slavery has been abolished. She runs back to her family to tell them the good news.

Again, the film jumps back to an educational slide-show to show you the slave owners solution: indentured servitude. This was a system which lasted until 1917 in which people from across the British Empire (and further afield) were contracted or tricked into cheap labour. Guiana 1838 follows a group of Indians that were ‘contracted’ to work in Guyana (effectively tricked into slave labour).

Conclusion and What to Watch Next

If you don’t know what indentured servitude is or you don’t know much about the Atlantic slave trade, you should watch Guiana 1838. It’s educational style may remind you of the historical enactment videos you watched at school so expect to learn a lot.

Even though slavery has shaped the world perhaps more than any other event, there haven’t been that many films to document it, especially compared to the excess of Hollywood westerns. That being said, here are some films you must see:

12 Years a Slave: the 2014 Best Picture Winner from Steve McQueen that doesn’t shy away from the reality of slavery
Sankofa: A Burkinabe film which provides a perspective of Maafa (the African Holocaust) that Hollywood rarely gets close to
Roots: The original iconic TV series based on Alex Haley’s novel featuring Kunta Kinte
Django Unchained: Yes, Tarantino’s film follows the ‘white saviour’ narrative and can be seen as insensitive, but where else can you see a film in which an ex-slave gets revenge on his white slave masters??