Review
Title: Heart of Africa
Screen Play: Margaret Blair Young, Tshoper Kabambi
Director: Tshoper Kabambi
Producers: Margaret Blair Young, Bruce Young, Tshoper Kabambi, Ephraim Faith Buyikana, Deborah Basa
Studio: Excel Entertainment Group
Distribution: Purdie Distribution in association with Bimpa Production and Congo Rising
Genre: Drama
Year of Publication: 2020
Length: 94 minutes
Format: DVD, Blu Ray
In Lingali, subtitles in English, Spanish, French
Price: $14.98
Reviewed by Julie J. Nichols for the Association for Mormon Letters
Many frequenters of this website know that Margaret Blair Young has long been a champion of diversity in and out of the Church, a passion which has evolved into an intense call to help fill Africa’s needs, particularly in the Congo. Her plays, novels, and stories, many with Darius Gray, have personalized the history of Black people in the Church. Her work with the people of Lodja, DNR, is exemplary (see https://www.congorising.org/). .
In a recent interview, Margaret told me that a few years ago she began a correspondence with an African missionary whose story spoke to her. Raised in a Congolese revolutionary faction to hate white people, he joined the Church, became a missionary in his own country, and was called to work with a white companion from America with his own severe racist issues.
Margaret met Tshoper Kabambi, a Congolese filmmaker in a country whose film industry barely existed. He had wanted to make films since childhood, and his short works had won awards in various international festivals. Margaret approached him with a script she had written dramatizing this missionary’s story. He agreed to attempt a feature-length film on the condition that the actors would be Congolese, and that he could change and revise the script to his satisfaction. Two well-known Congolese actors were recruited to play the parts of the leader of the revolutionary faction and the mission president, and production on Heart of Africa began.
In King Leopold’s Ghost, a riveting, revelatory account of the brutal destruction deployed on the Congo by King Leopold II in the 1880s (think Heart of Darkness, only it’s not fiction), Adam Hochschild characterizes the country thus:
History lies heavy on Africa: the long decades of colonialism, several hundred years of the Atlantic and Arab world slave trade, and—all too often ignored—countless centuries of indigenous slavery before that. From the colonial era, the major legacy Europe left to Africa was not democracy as it is practiced today in countries like England, France, and Belgium; it was authoritarian rule and plunder. On the whole continent, perhaps no nation has had a harder time than the Congo in emerging from the shadow of its past.
It’s imperative to understand this background—both of the Congo as a country, and of the film itself—to fully appreciate Heart of Africa. Several corollary conditions need to be kept in mind.
- It’s a foreign film. Except when the American missionary speaks, it’s in Lingali, with subtitles. It should be watched like any foreign film: some things will not be comprehensible if seen through the lens of American culture.
- It is not a heartwarming story about the Church or about naïve but well-meaning missionaries who grow up in charming ways through their service. Tshoper Kabambi revised Margaret Young’s original script so that it would reflect the effects of a violent history on the people of the Congo, symbolized by the story of one young man in particular. A key principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ—forgiveness—has a place in this film, but it’s not about that.
- It’s a first feature-length film from a filmmaker in a country that has never had a film industry. All of the equipment–lights, camera, editing—were donated by Americans. Settings, camera angles, lighting, editing—all reflect potential and passion, not necessarily height-of-career expertise.
The film begins with Gabriel (Moyindo Mpongo) running, running, his shirt covered with blood, obviously in deep distress, to the camp of his adopted father, the revolutionary leader Mwabila (Elbas Manuana). His “brother” Pierre (Fendi Bakajika) stands by, angry and jealous, as Mwabila proclaims Gabriel “Kalala Ilunga,” the god of the tribe; but this is clearly a point of contention not only between the brothers but within Gabriel himself. He has done something unworthy and can’t stay.
Next, we see him in Lodja, begging. Two African Mormon missionaries approach him and offer him help. He puts them off, but they bring him to their apartment and feed him; when they mention their mission president’s name, Kabasubabu, Gabriel indicates that he knows that name, but he can’t believe the person he knew of that name is the president of an American Christian church unit.
Soon, to impress Yvette (Amour Lombi), a pretty woman he meets at a baptism, he’s baptized himself. Kabasubabu (Bavon Diana Landa) takes the new convert under his wing, preaching the gospel of repentance and mercy, but then he calls him to return to his village to help build an orphanage there. Gabriel protests—he knows there’s nothing but trouble for him there—but his mission president insists.
Yes, indeed there’s trouble there. You’ll need to watch the film to see that the trouble is not just with his American companion, but with his old family, the revolutionary “father” and “brothers” who see him now as having defected to the side of a church that’s in cahoots with all they deplore. There is violence; there are graphic, uncompromising face-offs between Gabriel and Pierre and between Mwabila and Kabasubabu. Though the journey is not peaceful, filled with the explosive baggage of the past and the conflicting beliefs of the present, ultimately Gabriel is honorably released from his calling as a missionary and returns to Yvette in peace.
The “Heart of Africa” website, http://heartofafricafilm.com/, reflects the hopes that fueled the making of this film and the triumph that it is:
The Producers’ dream is to share a vision of the “heart of Africa” with the rest of the world and to bring cinema to the “heart of Africa” itself. When audience members in the DR-Congo see this film, it will be the first time most will have seen a film in an actual movie theater, and the first time many will have seen a movie of any kind.
…. We anticipate that as Heart of Africa reaches a wide audience, it will open the eyes–and hearts–of viewers to a part of the world that is on the brink of magnificent possibilities.
Heart of Africa is, as its name suggests, a film about a country. Gabriel stands in for the Congo, a country in turmoil, the product of a horrendous history. You’ll need to watch the film to discover what Gabriel is running from in the opening scene, but that, too, is symbolic of an entire country’s brutal background. A sequel to Heart of Africa is in the making, composed largely of scenes cut from the original filming that focused on the background of the American missionary companion. Called Companions, it will probably be more comfortable for American audiences to watch; but if you think of the two films as a companionship between an American church and an international culture, you’ll see that they reflect a story that the members of a worldwide church, a global community, profoundly need to see.