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itsbinghebitch · 6 months ago

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Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those of you who don’t know, I decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus, which is comprised of 9 units. I have completed four of the units (here is my queer cinema syllabus round up post with all the films I’ve watched and written about so far). It is time for me to make my way through Unit 5- Lesbians, which includes the following films: The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995), Bound (1996), Water Lilies (2007), Saving Face (2004), D.E.B.S. (2004), Set It Off (1996), The Handmaiden (2016), Carol (2015), Imagine Me and You (2005), Two of Us (2019), Rafiki (2018), and The Color Purple (1985).

Today I will be watching:

Rafiki (2018) dir. Wanuri Kahiu

[Run Time: 1 hour 22 minutes, Language: Swahili, English, Available on: Tubi, Google Play, Apply Play, Amazon Prime, YouTube rentals]

Summary: "Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives," but Kena and Ziki long for something more. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety.

Cast:

Samantha Mugatsia as Kena Mwaura

Sheila Munyiva as Ziki Okemi

Here is what I have learned about Rafiki (main source is Wikipedia):

Rafiki was adapted from author Monica Arac de Nyeko’s short story Jambala Tree.

Rafiki was the first feature film to feature two women falling in love to come out of Kenya.

Rafiki was the first Kenyan film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

Rafiki was banned in Kenya for promoting homosexuality after the writer and director refused to change the ending. Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya and can result in 14 years imprisonment, but support for LGBTQ rights is growing.

The writer and director, Wanuri Kahiu, sued the Kenyan government in order to allow the film to be screened in Kenya long enough to meet the eligibility criteria for entry into the Academy Awards.

The ban on the film was lifted for seven days, and every day it played to a sold out audience and brought in millions of shillings (1 million KES is ~7,700 USD)

Rafiki won Best Narrative Feature at the 2019 Seattle Queer Film Festival and a Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival. In total, Rafiki received 17 nominations and 17 awards at various international film festivals.

This was Samantha Mugatsia’s first role and Samantha won an award for Best Actress from the FESPACO festival.

Wanuri Kahiu is also the cofounder of a media collective called AFROBUBBLEGUM which supports African art “for its own sake.”

Samantha Mugatsia was in another film in 2018 but I do not see additional credits on IMDB, Sheila Munyiva was still getting work as recently as 2023, and Wanuri Kahiu is still working as well.

So needless to say, this film is incredibly important and successful despite the barriers it found around it. I saw some reviews for this film that mentioned how the narrative was rather simplistic and the characters fairly flat and while I do not entirely disagree, though I also do not consider that to be 100% accurate. I think there are a lot of little moments of dimensionality in some of the characters that make me want to see more of them. Blacksta’s clear romantic interest in Kena and the way in which he is constantly kind and friendly to her to the point where he is the one she goes to for comfort after everything goes to shit only to have his last appearance be him stalking off angry that Kena is “hurting all the people that care about” her when she tells him she loves Ziki.

Mama Atim being homophobic to the point of a) aiding in the discovery and subsequent facilitation of a gay bashing by the local community and b) not letting Kena touch her when they meet in the hospital where Kena is working as a doctor, only to immediately turn around and tell Kena that Ziki is back in the country, thereby facilitating their reunion and the hopeful ending that got this film banned in the first place.

Kena’s father being kind and relatively accepting of his daughter’s homosexuality while there are implications around (though never direct references to) the reason he may be divorced, and remarried, with a child on the way.

Ziki being the one not to care about how much of their intimacy the public may see only to be the one to pull away from Kena after they get caught, because she is experiencing severe consequences for perhaps the first time (that is an assumption on my part, I just know the girl is relatively wealthy).

All of this to say that often the moments of complexity are small, but they do exist.

Anyhoo, I think what I am thinking the most about in way of this film is less the plot and more everything else around it. Because this queer cinema syllabus is a warm up to watching BL, the challenges this film had with getting funding (their funding sources all came from outside of Kenya), with distribution, the legal battles Kahiu had to fight to get this film seen in a country she so clearly and deeply loves. Despite that, this film was a success, it broke a number of different barriers, and I will perpetually find it interesting how the prospect of money or positive attention can do so much to get a story out into the world.

This film promotes illegal behavior, this film was banned from airing in Kenya as a result. Yet, this film still aired in Kenya because someone making a legal ruling gave it a chance to meet eligibility criteria for one of (if not the) most famous awards shows in the world. And at the end of the day it wasn’t even the film that Kenya ended up submitting to the Academy Awards. This film sold out theaters, it raked in cash, it was the first in a number of ways.

It just makes me think of countries like Korea where, sure, homosexuality is not illegal, but where certain rights are still denied to queer people. Where very few celebrities are openly queer for risk of losing their jobs, yet continues to create BLs that gain international attention. Hell, even Thailand, which has established themselves as a BL soft power, sees many openly queer people struggling to find work in the film industry in spite of how many queer stories are getting pumped out. Also, I will no longer be accepting dead fish kisses from queer shows if the first lesbian love story out of Kenya gave us actual kisses.

I don’t know exactly where I am going with this, I do not consider the situation of BL and the situation of Rafiki to be identical, just similar. That Rafiki still obtains concessions from a country where being queer can get you incarcerated because it has the chance to be seen in high profile competitions is an interesting, though not entirely surprising, phenomenon.

About the film itself: I loved the use of color in it, it falls into the same trend of all other lesbian films in that a lot of it is comprised of silent glances between women longing to be together. I think it went for a wider net with a shallower lens rather than a smaller scope and deeper exploration. I felt like the film definitely started slow, but that the relationship between Ziki and Kena developed incredibly fast, to the point where I wondered if they were maybe already together in some fashion before the film even started (not dating, but at least both already having established a mutual interest, etc). I do think Kahiu did a good job of putting enough detail in that it felt like there were other things happening around the main plot to flesh out the world these characters were living in.

I loved that when we first learn about Ziki’s desires, it is to get out of Kenya, go somewhere people have never met an actual African, and not be like other Kenyan girls. But that when the choice to leave is removed from her, and she is sent to London to escape the societal backlash from being caught being queer, that she does not want to go. I loved that Kena was the one who spent a lot of time hiding her sexuality and her affection for Ziki before they were discovered, only to be the person to try to continue, to be visible, to be with Ziki after they are caught and beaten.

I thought it was so incredibly brave of Kena to walk up to Ziki’s door, look Ziki’s mother in the eye, and ask to talk to her daughter after everything that had happened the previous night, after being threatened by Ziki’s mother when she first catches them, and insulted by her mother when she comes to pick Ziki up from the police station.

I am in awe of people who stick to their convictions in cases like this. Wanuri Kaihu, who just wanted to “portray a "normal love story" that acknowledges the heroic challenges of choosing a "difficult love"” and does not see this act as a political one did not back down when faced with the options of removing hope from the ending and letting the film play in her own country or letting these girls meet again, in the sunshine, and have it kept from her own people. It reminds me of Strange Fruit from Unit 4, actually, when Kyle Schickner rejected $6 million in funding for his film because it would not have then been able to make his main character Black and gay. I marvel at how often people do not make those same decisions.

Favorite Moment

Okay, so. It is a very short and simple moment, only a few seconds long, but from my perspective it is one of the most important scenes in the entire film. Right near the end, after Kena has gone to see Ziki and Ziki has told her she will be sent to London, she goes and sits on a bench by herself. And after a moment someone just quietly takes a seat next to her. It is the other out, gay character who we have seen multiple times in passing. They just look at each other, neither of them says a word. But dear GOD I loved it so much.

Every time we have seen him before this moment, he is being harassed on the street. He is clearly living an entire life with his own struggle that exists completely outside of Kena and Ziki’s. At one point his face is bandaged, a clear indicator that he had recently been physically assaulted. Every time Kena is present when he is being harassed all she can do is get up silently and walk away. She never stands up for him, she never checks in on him. I actually had a moment of disappointment at one point when Kena storms off and Ziki goes to check on her upset because Kena left her alone. Kena opens the sliding door of the van and I thought for just the briefest of seconds that it might cut to that guy sitting there.

Instead it is candles, and they have sex, and that is also great and I am glad that scene exists, but I think in the times we are living in now, I was a little sad to see that they were not silently supporting each other. WHICH IS WHY I AM SO GLAD THAT HE DID AT THE END.

It is so so so so so important to me that this gay man, who has been living his life openly and suffering for it, and knows what it is like just sits down next to Kena to let her know that he is watching, that he is there, and that he understands. And he doesn’t even have to say a fucking word. That is community looking out for each other, and it will be beautiful every time.

Favorite Quote

“I wish we could go someplace we were real”

Score

8.5/10

It was not my favorite film, but I am so grateful that it exists, and I hope that the queer people living in Kenya who need movies like this one have found a way to watch it, and I think that the fact this film exists at all is amazing.

Coming up next, the last film in Unit 5: Lesbians- The Color Purple. I actually just got the audiobook from the library so I am looking forward to approaching the film viewing with more of an adaptation lens on it.

#rafiki #oh i need to watch this

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