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Life, above all
Media Watch
Film Life, above all
Dreamer Joint Venture GmbH Alsbrik 2010
Life, Above All Directed by Oliver Schmitz. Dreamer Joint Venture Filmproduktion, 2010. 105 min.
According to UNAIDS, between 1·5 and 3 million children have lost one or both parents to South Africa’s AIDS pandemic. Almost a third of women aged 25–29 years, and more than a quarter of men aged 30–34 years live with HIV, so there are also vast numbers of children tending to sick mothers and fathers up and down the country. Halfway through Oliver Schmitz’s stirring Life, Above All, we see how this kind of devastation renews itself. Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane) is in the early stages of adolescence. Her parents died from AIDS, we do not learn the circumstances, but it was enough for the local community to shun her. She no longer attends school. This can happen when parents are not around. Now she is destitute. She starts to solicit at truck stops. A woman appears, but only to lob a stone at Esther. “We don’t want any children round here”, she snarls. In this world, children are competition. Minutes later a toothless trucker entices Esther into his cab. This too can happen when parents are not around. The film is based on Alan Stratton’s well meaning Chanda’s Secrets (Toronto, ON: Annick Press, 2004), a novel for young adults that takes aim at the ignorance that hastens HIV’s procession across sub-Saharan Africa. Khomotso Manyaka plays Chanda. She lives in a ramshackle township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The film gets underway with the 12-year-old Chanda trying to choose a coffin. Her halfsister Sara, a baby, died that day. Sara’s ne’er-do-well father Jonah (Aubrey Poolo)—Chanda’s stepfather—has stolen the money earmarked for her funeral. Chanda tracks him down to one of the squalid bars that he favours. Jonah is upright but comatose. Chanda retrieves the money and leaves, ignoring the imprecations of Jonah’s shambolic girlfriend. It is a strong beginning, but in truth the early stages of the film are slightly unsatisfying. The overarching theme
of Life, Above All is how difficult it is to define your destiny when circumstances take against you. But Schmitz labours the point, at least initially, and his characters seem no less manhandled by him than by an implacable fate. It feels didactic and unformed. Things quickly build up a head of steam, however, particularly after Chanda moves into the foreground (no coincidence this, rather a testament to Manyaka’s sturdy and quick-witted performance), and Schmitz establishes a moving and intelligent drama, with more than half an eye on the tangle of issues bedevilling modern-day South Africa. Chanda is caught between two women: her mother Lillian (Lerato Mvelase), who is dying from AIDS, a disease that she dare not admit to carrying; and next door neighbour and family friend Mrs Tafa (Harriet Lenabe), fierce, moralistic, and decent. Taken together, they form a portrait of African womanhood: caring and stoic, formidable and determined, these are the women who hold communities together (those men that do appear in Life, Above All tend to be either malign or ineffective). But their insistence on keeping Lillian’s sickness a secret—“everyone thinks Sara died from influenza” Mrs Tafa assures the puzzled Chanda—for fear that the village will reject her is counterproductive. They would rather resort to charlatans and witchdoctors than risk the disapprobation of their neighbours. And so Lillian becomes increasingly ill, and the fragmentation of her family becomes increasingly inevitable. Chanda represents the new generation, and Life, Above All is driven by her burgeoning understanding that prejudice and lies are as destructive as the pandemic they encourage. Nor are traditional remedies any match for HIV/AIDS. Chanda’s native intelligence permits her to understand this, and she’s a hopeful presence, but there is a bitter undertone to this film. Chanda’s teacher, on learning of Sara’s death, advises her to take the week off. 1 week becomes 2, and as Lillian deteriorates the chances of Chanda returning to school sharply recede. Partway through the film, she does attend for an exam, woefully underprepared, but there is more than a hint that her schooling is over. The key to economic development, and to arresting the AIDS pandemic, is the empowerment of women. Ensuring women have control over their reproductive cycle, that they can negotiate safe sex, and that they are economically independent. And in all of this, education is vital. Depriving women of education is as sure a means of stunting a nation’s progress as any yet invented. Life, Above All takes its time to settle, but it makes this point with verve.
Talha Burki [email protected]
22
www.thelancetinfection.com Vol 11 January 2011
Film Life, above all
Dreamer Joint Venture GmbH Alsbrik 2010
Life, Above All Directed by Oliver Schmitz. Dreamer Joint Venture Filmproduktion, 2010. 105 min.
According to UNAIDS, between 1·5 and 3 million children have lost one or both parents to South Africa’s AIDS pandemic. Almost a third of women aged 25–29 years, and more than a quarter of men aged 30–34 years live with HIV, so there are also vast numbers of children tending to sick mothers and fathers up and down the country. Halfway through Oliver Schmitz’s stirring Life, Above All, we see how this kind of devastation renews itself. Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane) is in the early stages of adolescence. Her parents died from AIDS, we do not learn the circumstances, but it was enough for the local community to shun her. She no longer attends school. This can happen when parents are not around. Now she is destitute. She starts to solicit at truck stops. A woman appears, but only to lob a stone at Esther. “We don’t want any children round here”, she snarls. In this world, children are competition. Minutes later a toothless trucker entices Esther into his cab. This too can happen when parents are not around. The film is based on Alan Stratton’s well meaning Chanda’s Secrets (Toronto, ON: Annick Press, 2004), a novel for young adults that takes aim at the ignorance that hastens HIV’s procession across sub-Saharan Africa. Khomotso Manyaka plays Chanda. She lives in a ramshackle township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The film gets underway with the 12-year-old Chanda trying to choose a coffin. Her halfsister Sara, a baby, died that day. Sara’s ne’er-do-well father Jonah (Aubrey Poolo)—Chanda’s stepfather—has stolen the money earmarked for her funeral. Chanda tracks him down to one of the squalid bars that he favours. Jonah is upright but comatose. Chanda retrieves the money and leaves, ignoring the imprecations of Jonah’s shambolic girlfriend. It is a strong beginning, but in truth the early stages of the film are slightly unsatisfying. The overarching theme
of Life, Above All is how difficult it is to define your destiny when circumstances take against you. But Schmitz labours the point, at least initially, and his characters seem no less manhandled by him than by an implacable fate. It feels didactic and unformed. Things quickly build up a head of steam, however, particularly after Chanda moves into the foreground (no coincidence this, rather a testament to Manyaka’s sturdy and quick-witted performance), and Schmitz establishes a moving and intelligent drama, with more than half an eye on the tangle of issues bedevilling modern-day South Africa. Chanda is caught between two women: her mother Lillian (Lerato Mvelase), who is dying from AIDS, a disease that she dare not admit to carrying; and next door neighbour and family friend Mrs Tafa (Harriet Lenabe), fierce, moralistic, and decent. Taken together, they form a portrait of African womanhood: caring and stoic, formidable and determined, these are the women who hold communities together (those men that do appear in Life, Above All tend to be either malign or ineffective). But their insistence on keeping Lillian’s sickness a secret—“everyone thinks Sara died from influenza” Mrs Tafa assures the puzzled Chanda—for fear that the village will reject her is counterproductive. They would rather resort to charlatans and witchdoctors than risk the disapprobation of their neighbours. And so Lillian becomes increasingly ill, and the fragmentation of her family becomes increasingly inevitable. Chanda represents the new generation, and Life, Above All is driven by her burgeoning understanding that prejudice and lies are as destructive as the pandemic they encourage. Nor are traditional remedies any match for HIV/AIDS. Chanda’s native intelligence permits her to understand this, and she’s a hopeful presence, but there is a bitter undertone to this film. Chanda’s teacher, on learning of Sara’s death, advises her to take the week off. 1 week becomes 2, and as Lillian deteriorates the chances of Chanda returning to school sharply recede. Partway through the film, she does attend for an exam, woefully underprepared, but there is more than a hint that her schooling is over. The key to economic development, and to arresting the AIDS pandemic, is the empowerment of women. Ensuring women have control over their reproductive cycle, that they can negotiate safe sex, and that they are economically independent. And in all of this, education is vital. Depriving women of education is as sure a means of stunting a nation’s progress as any yet invented. Life, Above All takes its time to settle, but it makes this point with verve.
Talha Burki [email protected]
22
www.thelancetinfection.com Vol 11 January 2011