New Films from the Diaspora

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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There's more to look forward to than "Undercover Brother" this year in the world of Black film. Every year, new films from or focused on the African diaspora come to festivals, independent theaters, and are made available on cable, video or DVD. Last year, "Lumumba," by Raoul Peck was the must-see Black international film. This year, there are also powerful films worth checking out. Several films and videos, including "Karmen Gei," "La Tropical" and "Ali Zaoua," were part of Filmfest DC, in Washington, D.C., this year and are coming to a theater or festival near you.

"La Tropical"

The story of "La Tropical," Havana's popular outdoor dance hall, is told like a love story in the hands of director David Turnley. In an atmospheric swirl of black-and-white, the regulars of the hall loom large in weekend dramas of romance, passion, lust, the transforming power of music and dance, and the triumphs and travails of Cuba's Black population.

The focus here is on sensuality, sexuality and African-inspired dance that emphasizes movement of the pelvis, rather than the feet. The camera moves close up on shaking butts, grinding hips, graceful arms and a joyful sense of purpose that completes the performance package. Turnley, a White, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who in recent years has turned to documentary, takes the role sometimes of an informed commentator and, at other times, of a giddy voyeur, treating the dancing Black female form like eye candy.

The video starts in slow motion, with a shot upward of a young, smiling woman churning her hips opposite a dance partner. It captures the frenzy of two wild women on stage, rubbing their crotches, with their panties visible, hard against Pedrito, the fine lead singer for the band, Los Van Van. It winds down with shots of the entire hall visible though a pair of flapping Black thighs.

Often positioned in the midst of gyrating bodies, the 96-minute documentary captures the impersonal intimacy included in many Caribbean dances, which take bumping and grinding, or "winding" to the limit. Debate, if you want, issues of origin and cross-pollenization but it is clear that dances at La Tropical have much in common with your average performance on an average rap video from these United States.

What sets this video apart from other good-time concert flicks is the extent to which it goes outside the concert hall and gives voice to dancers and performers. Here, on the streets and in the homes of Havana, moving bodies become people with histories, aspirations, challenges, triumphs and tragedies. There is the poor young man in love with a girl from the other side of the tracks. There is the family of performers caring for a teen-ager with disabling cerebral palsy. There is the 77-year-old dance hall diva, a real character who goes by the name Tikitiki, who swears her Sunday visits to La Tropical keep her alive.

It is through these stories, as well as through a series fruitful interviews, that "La Tropical" empowers the voices of those being featured and becomes less about typical Euro-American voyeurism. It also becomes a story about race in Cuba. Most of the hall's patrons are working class Blacks; very few Cubans who consider themselves "White" go there. While the revolution has vastly improved life for the island's majority Black and "mulatto" populations, entrenched race divisions that are also class divisions still remain.

Toward the end, a carload of elderly Black Cubans, leaving La Tropical after a rainstorm, praise the social changes seen on the island in their lifetime. But a young White guitarist for a troupe of Flamenco artists-obviously not as popular as the bands of La Tropical—rails against the lot that fate has dealt him. He wants to go to Florida. He sings a morose song that can remind you of Ricky Martin's "La Vida Loca," as if he is imagining how, with his White skin and musical ability, he could be living large in another place. Through an engaging mix of such voices and ideas, Turnley manages to tell a story bigger than La Tropical, one that is as time—worn and winding as Old Havana's churning streets.

"Karmen Gai"

Energetic traditional music and dance, featured often in African cinema, provides the spark for "Karmen Gei," loosely based on Bizet's opera "Carmen" and a novel by Prosper Merimee. Carmen's story line, about a determined, free woman with free thoughts about love, has proven adaptable to the African American experience in productions like "Carmen Jones," featuring Dorothy Dandridge in 1954. The African experience, or more specifically, the Senegalese one, proves as accommodating here as well.

Djeinaba Diop Gai, in the lead role, is sensual and playful. She commands all her scenes and dialogue, and sometimes sings in the rhythmic monotone associated with griots. There are also some scenes where everyone present joins in, creating a chorus of African call and response. This African Karmen casts a spell and charms through her intense gaze and swiveling hips. The dance here is a modern dance of seduction, not the dances we know related to custom or ritual. It functions as an aphrodisiac. It's not a strip tease, but more like an hypnotic boom-shaka-laka that entrances those around her.

When we first meet Karmen, she is in prison, for what we do not know—but we do know that Karmen is a BAAAAD girl. In the prison's open-air yard, she dances everyone into such a frenzy that the female (presumabley gay or bi-sexual) warden summons Karmen to her bed. After that sexual favor, Karmen is freed.

Director Joseph Gai Ramaka wastes no time in making subtle commentary about official corruption and dishonesty. If this Karmen is cast as a sexual maverick, she is also cast as a political dissident who dares to mock and challenge the military and government. Not only are wardens doing it with inmates, military men are cheating on their wives. When Karmen is released, she dances at a public event attended by a local official who is smitten with her. Well, the man's wife, sitting next to him, doesn't take too kindly to Karmen shimmying her ass in front of them. The wife stands up, ready to engage in a dancing duel with Karmen. Shapely and bejeweled, but obviously no match for Karmen, she winds up on the ground with Karmen swinging on her. Karmen is no joke.

Karmen has an affair with the soldier—basically ruining his life in the process—and then can't get rid of him. She secretly loves an older man, Samba, also a social outcast. She indulges a handsome suitor, Massigi, with some attention but is not very interested. In all versions of "Carmen," there is always the question of whether the woman is ultimately portrayed as so foolish and coy that she somehow deserves what she gets, or whether she is simply a free spirit that others, specifically men, want to cage for their own tired purposes. "Karmen Gei," like many "Carmen"productions, straddles between the two extremes, making the protagonist both a hero and villain.

"Ali Zaoua"

In a desolate corner of Casablanca, Morocco, a young boy named Ali is killed when a gang member strikes him in the head with a rock. Over the next few days, his two friends, young children living on the city's decayed streets, work to give him a proper burial. With this premise, director Nabil Ayouch hurls us into a world of stark contrasts: of childhood innocence existing despite harsh brutality, of security alongside precarious existence and, worse, complete destitution.

Ali's friends, Kwita, Omar and Boubker, are a childishly salty, humorous and heartbreaking crew. The actual street children playing these roles, Mounim Kbab, Mustapha Hansali and Hicham Moussoune respectively, turn in awesome performances. To say they are convincing is an understatement as well as a misstatement. They are, after all, what they are—smudges, scars, rags and all. Kwita, the oldest of the three and the leader after the death of Ali, tries to steer the trio clear of the major street gang and its leader, Dib, an obviously mentally challenged man who lords over young ones with terror and brute force.

The film is unsentimental but not graphic in presenting existence in a poor developing country. Life, as it is lived here, offers a set place and station for these boys. There is not even an illusion of upward mobility to a higher class or standard of living. The children are homeless "glue sniffers." Ali's mother, though a prostitute, at least has a home that includes a room for her son. She has repaired his boombox so that it will play loudly and drown out activity in her room next door. A pretty student, loved by Kwita from a distance, enjoys a security only imagined by him.

Ayouch tells a story true in much of the world today—even in our own communities—of discarded children and futures, but still manages to wrap in dreams those without apparent possibilities. Ali and Kwita once imagined living in the "twin towers," two large apartment buildings in the modern downtown Casablanca. Before his death, Ali had taken the first steps to fulfill his dream of being a sailor. He had arranged to work as a cabin boy for a local fisherman. He was a talented young artist who created happy-ever-after drawings of himself with his future love. It is these childish images that form a thread throughout the film, allowing sweet imagination to literally float over a world that promises little hope.

"Ali Zaoua" premiered two years ago and, since then, has won more than 30 awards at international film festivals, including the grand prize at last year's Pan African Film and Television Festival in Burkina Faso (FESPACO). It was also Morocco's submission to the Best Foreign Film category for the 2001 Academy Awards. Distributed by Arab Film Distribution, it is scheduled to have a limited theatrical release in several U.S. cities this year before being released on VHS and DVD. A schedule of upcoming theatrical screenings can be found at www.arabfilm.com.

"Karmen Gei" is playing in theaters across the United States this year, with a run May 17-30 at the Oak Street Theater in Minneapolis. Check www.newsreel.org for a schedule.

Esther Iverem's film reviews also appear on BET.com

-- May 24, 2002

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