Africa on Indian Screen
22 Dec 2013 9:07 PM GMT
I am what I am, not what you say I am: the proposition seems all too obviously simple and effective as a rhetorical statement to get out of a tight corner. But when a whole continent like Africa or a country like India says this repeatedly for several centuries of European domination and damnation, the voice sounds disembodied, even insincere. The ever-ending chains of denial and disowning seem to echo back: We know who we are not, we know not who we are. And as the denials climax into a deafening din, we slowly begin to understand what it means to have one’s innocence disrupted, when it’s no longer enough to state who you are, and instead, you must endlessly disown and destroy what others have made of you. In case you think this is just wordplay, look at the unceasing violence that the post-colonial period has generated in Africa and Asia – the daily violence in India and the ever-increasing varieties of it that may keep the taxonomists employed for a long time to come.
Contrast this with the clear messages from the west that defined the African or the Indian on a daily basis, crushing our sense of selves with uninterrupted regularity. They called it history; they still do. We fall for the demeaning rhetoric and often respond with talk of high glory and lost pasts rather than our simple, mundane humanity that the west seems to have lost in its march towards the morass of rationalist ennui. We speak as victims of history rather than its present makers.
The two African films, The Battle of Tabato and Durban Poison, and even the closing film at the IFFI [International Film Festival of India, Goa] this year, A Long Walk, based on Nelson Mandela’s life, share themes that connect with India with far greater immediacy than the endlessly tired and often tiresome cinemas of Europe in their endless exploration of individual alienation.
In The Battle of Tabato, by the filmmaker João Viana, an exiled father comes back to Guinea Bissau to perform a basic filial duty to give his daughter in the manner of the Indian kanyadaan in marriage to a musician bridegroom who has made a career in the local traditional forms. The father carries in his suitcases mementos from the past: decrepit landmines from his violent days in his home country.
There is no better metaphor, no better way to talk about a country that saw seven of its elected presidents killed one after the other in recent times. Caressing the landmines from the past is now the gentlest sentiment carried in the heart of the father. Sure enough, he has the touch of death and instead of marrying his daughter off, he ends up killing her in a car accident while riding through the disturbing landscapes of his past near his native village. This stark and simple film says many things, pouring out the rich life meanings in the manner of a folktale. The meanings and messages are multiple but to simplify them here, the storyteller pits music, culture and creativity against violence, against violence as such for the greatest or the lowest of causes – a balafon or a cora [both African instruments] against the gun. In its simplicity, the film seems to claim that the guns at best can only tell who you are not; it is your music that will begin to spell out who you are.
During a conversation, filmmaker Viana described his work as ‘Sushi Griot’, a quaint neologism.
Sushi here refers to the raw, unprocessed and unmediated storytelling recipe, and Griot, a word from Portuguese-French refers to the traditional African storyteller who strung up tales that informed the generations of community members in a systematic and dedicated manner where they came from – a kind of unofficial and folkish purana, if you must see it through the Indian eyes.
Viana’s Sushi Griot is an unforgettable tale with a unique visual and audio grammar that shocks and then settles the viewer firmly in his seat. We have heard enough of Africa as a ‘problem’ and it’s now time to look at it as peoples, conversations, musical styles, motifs, accents and what have you. In brief, when you ‘ask’ Africa instead of ‘telling’ it, you are likely to come back hugely enriched: this is the kind of engagement India needs with Africa. Applauding the cultural wealth of the other is perhaps the best way to get over your own vulgarities and nitpicking philistinism.
Durban Poison, a film from South Africa by Andrew Worsdale will seem disturbing to the Indian audience for the utter meanness and ugliness of its violence. It shows the kind of urban
violence that India may hopefully not have to face on a scale. It is nearly the exact opposite of the loud, righteous and supposedly heroic violence we see in the Indian movies and also public life in a pre-election year. The story of the film revolves around a poor white couple in South Africa who loot and kill a series of individuals just to pay for their daily expense and to run their household that includes a newborn infant. They do it with a quiet casualness and determination that may leave you curling your toes. This is no Bonnie and Clyde stuff but a workaday kind of drama simmering in the cracks of the South African society. The Durban poison here is not the usual top class hashish, but the demented high of macho violence in its utter everyday ‘f... you’ sense! Although in a brief conversation, the filmmaker Worsdale explained that his story deals with the macho culture among the white in South Africa, claiming that the women are often the victims; Durban Poison seemed to suggest a complicity, a catalyst like or even instigating role played by the wife in this crime thriller format. Both the films were made with budgets of 40-50 lakh rupees in the video format, and in fact Tabato, a black and white film, may have managed to both save on expense and enhance its starkness at a go by omitting the predictable African splendour of colours seen in tourist brochures.
Tragically, neither of the two films has been seen in the countries in focus and one can only hope that they will be at some point. Africa, like Asia (or even India), is big, and it’s tempting to stereotype it and be done with it till you are faced with your own stereotypes of the Indian that in turn demean and flatter you in a rollercoaster of emotions. The three films from IFFI 2013 give a sense of contrast, a sense of plenty, and a sense of the multiplicities that is Africa – just as we Indians go on and on about both our ‘Indianness’ and our pluralities in the same breath with no hesitation, no hiccup, as if these are definitions you could formulate once for all with a sense of executive finality!
Borrowing from João Viana’s Sushi Griot, the question one may ask is: Is it possible to rise above the banal convolutions imposed on us by the west, to reduce the intellectual fireworks to a little lamp that illuminates, to discover the simplicities, instead of constant simplifications? India and Africa share these unavoidable challenges, and cinema is a reasonably good means of dialogue.
The author is a Patna-based researcher
Conceived by Kalyan Mukherjee,
Consulting Editor, Africa Rising
Research by Aman Ramrakha
Guest Editor: Abhishek Choudhary
Contrast this with the clear messages from the west that defined the African or the Indian on a daily basis, crushing our sense of selves with uninterrupted regularity. They called it history; they still do. We fall for the demeaning rhetoric and often respond with talk of high glory and lost pasts rather than our simple, mundane humanity that the west seems to have lost in its march towards the morass of rationalist ennui. We speak as victims of history rather than its present makers.
The two African films, The Battle of Tabato and Durban Poison, and even the closing film at the IFFI [International Film Festival of India, Goa] this year, A Long Walk, based on Nelson Mandela’s life, share themes that connect with India with far greater immediacy than the endlessly tired and often tiresome cinemas of Europe in their endless exploration of individual alienation.
In The Battle of Tabato, by the filmmaker João Viana, an exiled father comes back to Guinea Bissau to perform a basic filial duty to give his daughter in the manner of the Indian kanyadaan in marriage to a musician bridegroom who has made a career in the local traditional forms. The father carries in his suitcases mementos from the past: decrepit landmines from his violent days in his home country.
There is no better metaphor, no better way to talk about a country that saw seven of its elected presidents killed one after the other in recent times. Caressing the landmines from the past is now the gentlest sentiment carried in the heart of the father. Sure enough, he has the touch of death and instead of marrying his daughter off, he ends up killing her in a car accident while riding through the disturbing landscapes of his past near his native village. This stark and simple film says many things, pouring out the rich life meanings in the manner of a folktale. The meanings and messages are multiple but to simplify them here, the storyteller pits music, culture and creativity against violence, against violence as such for the greatest or the lowest of causes – a balafon or a cora [both African instruments] against the gun. In its simplicity, the film seems to claim that the guns at best can only tell who you are not; it is your music that will begin to spell out who you are.
During a conversation, filmmaker Viana described his work as ‘Sushi Griot’, a quaint neologism.
Sushi here refers to the raw, unprocessed and unmediated storytelling recipe, and Griot, a word from Portuguese-French refers to the traditional African storyteller who strung up tales that informed the generations of community members in a systematic and dedicated manner where they came from – a kind of unofficial and folkish purana, if you must see it through the Indian eyes.
Viana’s Sushi Griot is an unforgettable tale with a unique visual and audio grammar that shocks and then settles the viewer firmly in his seat. We have heard enough of Africa as a ‘problem’ and it’s now time to look at it as peoples, conversations, musical styles, motifs, accents and what have you. In brief, when you ‘ask’ Africa instead of ‘telling’ it, you are likely to come back hugely enriched: this is the kind of engagement India needs with Africa. Applauding the cultural wealth of the other is perhaps the best way to get over your own vulgarities and nitpicking philistinism.
Durban Poison, a film from South Africa by Andrew Worsdale will seem disturbing to the Indian audience for the utter meanness and ugliness of its violence. It shows the kind of urban
violence that India may hopefully not have to face on a scale. It is nearly the exact opposite of the loud, righteous and supposedly heroic violence we see in the Indian movies and also public life in a pre-election year. The story of the film revolves around a poor white couple in South Africa who loot and kill a series of individuals just to pay for their daily expense and to run their household that includes a newborn infant. They do it with a quiet casualness and determination that may leave you curling your toes. This is no Bonnie and Clyde stuff but a workaday kind of drama simmering in the cracks of the South African society. The Durban poison here is not the usual top class hashish, but the demented high of macho violence in its utter everyday ‘f... you’ sense! Although in a brief conversation, the filmmaker Worsdale explained that his story deals with the macho culture among the white in South Africa, claiming that the women are often the victims; Durban Poison seemed to suggest a complicity, a catalyst like or even instigating role played by the wife in this crime thriller format. Both the films were made with budgets of 40-50 lakh rupees in the video format, and in fact Tabato, a black and white film, may have managed to both save on expense and enhance its starkness at a go by omitting the predictable African splendour of colours seen in tourist brochures.
Tragically, neither of the two films has been seen in the countries in focus and one can only hope that they will be at some point. Africa, like Asia (or even India), is big, and it’s tempting to stereotype it and be done with it till you are faced with your own stereotypes of the Indian that in turn demean and flatter you in a rollercoaster of emotions. The three films from IFFI 2013 give a sense of contrast, a sense of plenty, and a sense of the multiplicities that is Africa – just as we Indians go on and on about both our ‘Indianness’ and our pluralities in the same breath with no hesitation, no hiccup, as if these are definitions you could formulate once for all with a sense of executive finality!
Borrowing from João Viana’s Sushi Griot, the question one may ask is: Is it possible to rise above the banal convolutions imposed on us by the west, to reduce the intellectual fireworks to a little lamp that illuminates, to discover the simplicities, instead of constant simplifications? India and Africa share these unavoidable challenges, and cinema is a reasonably good means of dialogue.
The author is a Patna-based researcher
Conceived by Kalyan Mukherjee,
Consulting Editor, Africa Rising
Research by Aman Ramrakha
Guest Editor: Abhishek Choudhary
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