Lights! Camera! Africa!

Paul Weideman |

5/8/2008 - 5/9/08

The images won't go away. The scenes of genocidal atrocities in Sudan and Uganda, witnessed while reviewing two documentaries, The Devil Came on Horseback and Uganda Rising, are persistent. Time for something else.

Two movies from this year's African Effect film festival — On the Rumba River and Bab'Aziz — brought great relief and pleasure. The film festival runs Thursday to Sunday, May 15 to 18, at the Center for Contemporary Arts.

Soukous superstar

Rumba River is a documentary about Antoine Kolosoy, who has long been considered the first superstar of soukous, or Congolese rumba music. It's set in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was formerly Zaire and before that the Belgian Congo. The film opens with a close-up of a Kinshasa puddle pelted by raindrops, then another of a guitarist's fingers. In a strong voice punctuated with a subtle yodeling effect, a man sings, "Where are you, Louise?"

The singer is Kolosoy, who is widely known by his nickname, Papa Wendo. The song is "Marie Louise," a big hit when Kolosoy released it as a single in 1948. He had developed his music at night while working as a mechanic for the River Congo Transport Authority, testing his songs in ports up and down the river. In the film, Joseph "Maproko" Munange sits outside a house playing his saxophone. A woman tells him to stop making noise. He tells the filmmaker about Wendo's reputation after the release of "Marie Louise" and about the time in 1949 that the famous musician visited Mbanza-Ngungu, Maproko's town in western Congo. "He looked so fine sitting in his car," the saxophonist recalls. "The schools closed for two days. Two days off!" Everyone had to go see Wendo perform.

Flash back to the present, and Wendo's wife berates him for spending his life sitting under a tree instead of going out looking for work. When pressed, he maintains that he won't find music contracts wandering the streets.

Wendo had followed the success of "Marie Louise" with 12 years of performing and recording. After his country gained independence from Belgium in 1960, he disappeared. In the 1990s, his career resumed, now with an orchestra composed of younger musicians and a few survivors of his old group. One is trumpet player Alphonse "Biolo" Batilangandi. "One morning I got a letter from Papa Wendo asking me to come as soon as possible, so I went," Biolo says. "He said to me, 'Biolo, no one believes in us anymore, but our time has come round. I finally found a place to rehearse. Maybe we can go play in America.'"

Wendo also rounded up saxophonist Maproko, guitarist Mukubuele "Bikunda" Nzoku, and mbira player Antoine Moundanda. At an outdoor bar, Wendo tells the others he was born in 1925 and began playing in 1936. In the early days, the Belgian colonists were "terrorizing the country" and the local Christians were up in arms. "The priests believed that I was bringing the devil, and so they wanted to arrest me," he said. But "the whites liked it. 'That little lad sings well,' they woul."

Wendo, now the musical patriarch, advises the younger musicians in his group to have solidarity and to not be combative. Then they do their thing. Wendo sings to a softly propulsive musical stew of guitars, horns, and percussion. People dance.

The music lives, and now it has spread beyond the Congo. Wendo recorded an album called Marie Louise, which was released in 1999 in Africa and 2000 in the United States. On the Rumba River is all about the enduring power of music and its ability to inspire a people and even enhance a nation's concept of itself.

Dervish dreams

Bab'Aziz takes the viewer into the magical dunescapes of Tunisia and Iran, where a blind sage travels with his young granddaughter, Ishtar. On the surface, Bab'Aziz is searching for a gathering of dervishes that takes place every three decades. But the film, directed by Nacer Khemir, is really about what happens along the path. Strangers are encountered, and their stories unfold like apparently disparate segments in a long poem. The entire film is a poetic vision, cradled in gorgeous original music by Armand Amar and the stunning cinematography of Mahmoud Kalari. The screenplay is by Khemir and Tonino Guerra (collaborator with Federico Fellini on Amarcord and with Michelangelo Antonioni on Blowup).

Where is this gathering of dervishes, asks the precocious but respectful Ishtar (Maryam Hamid). "I don't know," replies Bab'Aziz (Parviz Shahinkhou). "It suffices to walk, just walk. Those who are invited will find the way." He gives the girl dates to munch as they trudge up and down the dunes, apparently in the middle of nowhere.

To relieve Ishtar's boredom, Bab'Aziz begins telling her a long story, which turns into a tale paralleling their own. It's about a young prince who is lost after following a gazelle into the desert. In one of Khemir's amazing scenes, distant figures bearing lanterns move away from a settlement into the twilight desert to search for the prince.

One day a horseman arrives at the searchers' camp. "We found the prince, but he's not the same as he was," he declares. We see that the prince has abandoned himself to another dimension. He sits, unmoving, gazing into a pool. His situation may exemplify a conundrum for the spiritual seeker: the difference between contemplation and mere self-absorption. (Sufi ideas surface in this film in quote from the mystic poets Rumi, Attar, Ibn Arabi, and Ibn al-Farid, according to the film credits.)

One of the people the old man and his granddaughter run across is Zaid (Nessim Khaloul), a poet with a beautiful singing voice. The old man looks wise, so Zaid asks how to find the dervish conclave. "Everyone uses his most precious gift to find his way," Bab'Aziz answers him. "For you, it's your voice. Sing, my son, and the way will be shown to you." They will meet again.

Another side story involves a man named Osman (Mohamed Graïaa). People at the settlement think Osman is nuts after he jumps into a well. Bab'Aziz encourages him to tell his story.

In a flashback, Osman is working, like his father before him, as a sand carrier. (Does such a thing make sense in a land with almost nothing but sand?) Osman has decided to end the family tradition and go to a place where there is no sand. One of his customers, a scribe, gives him a letter, which Osman takes to a beautiful woman. She asks him to read it to her. The words are slightly erotic. Osman (who looks a bit like Harpo Marx) runs off when the woman's husband comes home, and he falls into a well. Osman finds himself in a palace filled with women. One tells him to go investigate a fire out in the desert. He sees it's only a burning palm tree, and when he turns around the palace is gone. He's trying to rediscover the palace full of women by jumping into wells.

Bab'Aziz and Ishtar eventually come to a remarkable place: a subterranean, multiroomed mosque filled with dervishes moving to music. Ishtar finds a row of cloaked figures. She lifts the hood of one and reveals the face of a beautiful woman, who sings a sacred song. Ishtar closes her eyes and rocks her head in bliss. After more adventures, Ishtar must part company with Bab'Aziz. She attends the gathering with Zaid, who searches for his love, a female dervish.

This is a movie of peace, beauty, and intriguing psychological proposals.

details
The African Effect: films from seven African countries
Thursday - Sunday, May 15-18
Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Santa Fe Trail
Single film $9, $8.50 students; festival passes $50; 982-1338

The African Effect
Thursday-Sunday, May 15-18

Seminars

1 p.m. May 17: Fighting FGM. Jessica Neuwirth, the director of Equality Now, an international organization that works for the human rights of women around the world, leads a discussion on efforts to end female genital mutilation.

2:45 p.m. May 17: House of Mirrors: Africa Through Hollywood's Lens with scholar Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman, CCA's director of film programming. Panelists use clips from new and cla Africa is represented in film.

Special screening

8 p.m. May 16: Remembering Sembene: Camp de Thiaroye. The late Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema, died last summer. This tribute is introduced by Samba Gadjigo, author of Sembene: Revolutionary Artist. (Senegal, 1987, 147 minutes, 35 mm, in French and Wolof with subtitles)

Films

Bab'Aziz: noon and 6 p.m. May 16; 11 a.m. May 17; and 10 a.m. and 8:15 p.m. May 18. (Tunisia/Iran, 2006, 96 minutes, 35 mm, Typecast Films, in Arabic and Farsi with subtitles)

Daratt, the Dry Season: 4 p.m. May 16, 4:15 p.m. May 17. (Chad/Austria, 2006, 95 minutes, 35 mm, in French and Arabic with English subtitles)

Faro, Goddess of the Waters: 8 p.m. May 15, noon May 18. (Mali, 2007, 96 minutes, 35 mm, in Bambara with subtitles)

Munyurangabo: 6 p.m. May 18. (U.S./Rwanda, 2007, 97 minutes, 35 mm, in Kinyarwanda with subtitles)

On the Rumba River: 8:15 p.m. May 17. (France/Congo, 2007, 85 minutes, 35 mm, in Lingala with subtitles)

Son of Man: 6:15 p.m. May 17, 4 p.m. May 18. (South Africa, 2007, 86 minutes, video, in Xhosa with subtitles)