Somewhere in Africa, a ‘bug’ gnaws away, pulling mothers away from children, fathers from families and friends from each other. Even as the adults waver between choosing Christianity, black magic or isolation to deal with this menace, the children try their best to pick up the pieces and move on.
One of these children is Chanda in Oliver Schmitz’s ‘Life, Above All’. Adapted from Alan Stratton's "Chanda's Secrets", this is the story of a teenage girl in Africa who deals with the blight of AIDS in her own ineffable way. Growing up in a family where her father has died and her mother has taken up with another man (Jonah), Chanda lives life on her own terms and indeed she needs to… she takes care of her step-siblings, helps arrange the funeral of a baby sister, snatches money from a drunk step-father, does homework and tries her best to be a good friend to Esther (whose parents have died of AIDS, leaving her homeless/hopeless in a shack at the edge of the town).
The casting was mostly amazing… flinty Esther, precocious Chanda, the drama queen neighbours… all of these do complete justice to their complex roles (although just sometimes, it becomes a bit unreal as the milk of human kindness overfloweth– good-hearted shopkeepers and ambulance drivers seem to abound in Africa; in real life, in a developing country, I would imagine that ambulance drivers demand extra moolah for home delivery and shop-keepers being quite ruthless with margins). The music and the melodrama mix well with each other especially in the last scene where just the music/song could define the “desperate-for-salvation” mood that the movie plunged us, watchers into.
All through the movie, the spectre of AIDS is unyielding and omnipresent, casting a dark shadow over the sunny land... with Jonah catching the ‘bug’ and dying and her mother seeming to have contracted it as well, Chanda has to manage a complex maze of relationships and obligations that could easily overwhelm a regular 16 year old. But then again, this is no regular girl… this is Chanda, the girl who stands up against shrews, who brings back an abandoned mother from the edges of hell… this is Chanda who can and does anything.
I enjoyed best the scenes where the girls negotiate the hazy netherworld of adulthood… Esther’s miniskirted attempts to be cool and Chanda’s coy conversation with a boy after a dance are special and very deserving of the attention that the script and the camera pays to them. But fuzzy scenes do not a movie make; the harsh reality of an African generation blighted by AIDS re-emerges very soon and stuns you into silence – when the lights came on, I found a couple, almost looking stranded, in shock with tears in full flow.
One of these children is Chanda in Oliver Schmitz’s ‘Life, Above All’. Adapted from Alan Stratton's "Chanda's Secrets", this is the story of a teenage girl in Africa who deals with the blight of AIDS in her own ineffable way. Growing up in a family where her father has died and her mother has taken up with another man (Jonah), Chanda lives life on her own terms and indeed she needs to… she takes care of her step-siblings, helps arrange the funeral of a baby sister, snatches money from a drunk step-father, does homework and tries her best to be a good friend to Esther (whose parents have died of AIDS, leaving her homeless/hopeless in a shack at the edge of the town).
The casting was mostly amazing… flinty Esther, precocious Chanda, the drama queen neighbours… all of these do complete justice to their complex roles (although just sometimes, it becomes a bit unreal as the milk of human kindness overfloweth– good-hearted shopkeepers and ambulance drivers seem to abound in Africa; in real life, in a developing country, I would imagine that ambulance drivers demand extra moolah for home delivery and shop-keepers being quite ruthless with margins). The music and the melodrama mix well with each other especially in the last scene where just the music/song could define the “desperate-for-salvation” mood that the movie plunged us, watchers into.
All through the movie, the spectre of AIDS is unyielding and omnipresent, casting a dark shadow over the sunny land... with Jonah catching the ‘bug’ and dying and her mother seeming to have contracted it as well, Chanda has to manage a complex maze of relationships and obligations that could easily overwhelm a regular 16 year old. But then again, this is no regular girl… this is Chanda, the girl who stands up against shrews, who brings back an abandoned mother from the edges of hell… this is Chanda who can and does anything.
I enjoyed best the scenes where the girls negotiate the hazy netherworld of adulthood… Esther’s miniskirted attempts to be cool and Chanda’s coy conversation with a boy after a dance are special and very deserving of the attention that the script and the camera pays to them. But fuzzy scenes do not a movie make; the harsh reality of an African generation blighted by AIDS re-emerges very soon and stuns you into silence – when the lights came on, I found a couple, almost looking stranded, in shock with tears in full flow.
But girls like Chanda redeem us all and lead... lead kindly, light, amid th’encircling doom.
1 comment:
Whoa ! what a grim tale ! But Chanda seems like a little diamond in that gritty reality. My mr.resourceful doesn't have this film.Yet.
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