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Rafiki
****
Dir: Wanuri Kahiu
Starring: Samantha Mugatsia, Shelia Munyiva
(Kenya, 12A, 1hr 22mins)
Colourful street scenes of adults and children at work, rest and play in Nairobi belie the sinister backgrounds in Rafiki (‘friend’ in Swahili). We meet Kena Mwaura (Samantha Mugatsia), a skinny, skateboarding, cap-wearing tomboy who hangs with the guys playing cards and football. She’s waiting for her best bud – the handsome, charismatic motorbike taxi driver Blacksta (Neville Misati). He’s finishing up an encounter with perpetually scowling Nduta (Nice Githinji) who knows theirs isn’t a love-match because it’s Kena that Blacksta cares for.
Kena only has eyes for a fetching flirt with pastel-wrapped, swinging braids and neon-painted nails. Well-off Ziki Okemi (Shelia Munyiva) is unfortunately also the daughter of the man running against Kena’s father John (an understanding Jimmi Gathu) in the local election. Another reason besides shyness keeps the skateboarder from approaching Ziki in the street: same-sex sexual activity is illegal (and the film was banned in Kenya). From the moment a friend yells ‘faggot’ to a passing boy, a foreboding feeling is present.
Kena and Ziki do meet and date before they spend the night together, with Kena arranging a romantic hideaway in an old van, and the young couple’s tentative first lovemaking steps are sweet and tender. They make a pact not to be typical Kenyan girls who ‘get married, cook and have babies.’
The protagonists’ solo dialogue may seem underdeveloped, but perhaps that’s writer/director Wanuri Kahiu’s intention, the older teens finding their way through beginning love; it is simple, and they’re unsure, quiet. The ending’s maybe too pat for some. You do want to see what happens because you care about the characters. Mugatsia, making her acting debut, is perfectly amazing, a real find, as is Munyiva. Their exuberance shines through as does their anguish. The adults – totally realistic and excellent also.
There’s an interesting sub-element of role-switching: Ziki initially seems the stronger, bolder one and the mother you think will be sympathetic to the couple’s plight turns out not to be. Light, bright cinematography everywhere – laundry hung on clotheslines outside blocks of flats (then dripping signifying tears?) a bird on a wire (loneliness?), a low-angle shot aimed up between towers (the struggle to climb out of an oppressive world?) and of Kena viewing herself in the two-halves of a mirror she has (a double-life?). Rafiki is courageous, moving and very much now.
words RHONDA LEE REALI
Out now in cinemas and in Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff from today. Info here