100 Days of A Genocide

In the film 100 Days, Director Nick Hughes has offered a psychological close up of the making and carrying out of a genocide. I say, “a” genocide because as we watch the film, we can detect multiple references to the genocide of the Holocaust in WWII, (not to mention Serbia and Darfur) which adds to
the impression that this is not just about what happened in Rwanda, but what happens (and continues to happen) when any group of people systematically murder with the intention of extinguishing another race. Through many close-up shots of various character’s eyes in pivotal scenes throughout the film, Hughes gives the viewer a vicarious and visceral experience of the horror of this hideous episode in African history. One does not have to know that the film begins after the plane carrying the Hutu President of Rwanda was shot down giving the Hutu’s justification for their genocide of the Tutsi’s whom they had lived in “tolerable” peace for some time. This lack of background story or reason for the genocide emphasizes the obvious and important fact that genocide of any race has no justification. As the film opens, the Hutu Prefet is seen entering the office of his subordinate who presides over a village that has been previously shown as peaceful and beautiful with shots of its natural habitat and a young couple in love in the midst of this natural beauty. The Prefet has come to this village to tell this man in charge (or “governor”) that “you have been told–ordered–that the first enemy, before fighting the rebels, are the Tutsi population. We are going to kill them all.” This is Hughes’ first close-up and we witness the determination on the Prefet’s face as he emphatically underlines his point: “That is most important–ALL!”

The analogy to the Holocaust is obvious as the next scene cuts to a Catholic priest standing facing the camera giving grace before a meal where the governor who we just saw is sitting with his wife and two children. As the priest prays over the meal, his voice over begins, “In the last war the Germans committed many terrible crimes. Now, the Americans also committed terrible crimes but we don’t remember them because the Americans won.” This scene embodies the Catholic Church’s complicity in this genocide as it condoned the killings. The wife of the governor says, “If the Germans’ killed more people why did they not win? Was God on the side of the Americans?” The priest is quick to point out that God does not take sides, but we know that the Catholic Church certainly does and has controlled much of the Rwandans by its historical education and colonialist ideology. When the governor says, “But Father, I’m being asked to kill,” we are privy to the psychological manipulation of the church as the priest responds: “Killing is wrong. But you are entitled to defend yourself. The Catholic Church is quite clear on this point. God forgives us our sins provided we confess, we repent and we seek forgiveness.” As we see by the end of the movie, this is hypocrisy of the Church’s religious doctrine and manufactured to further the Church’s power. The connection of this scene of the priest, which cuts to the governor’s face at the table then to his face back in his office during the same conversation with the Prefet, further connects the conspiracy between the Catholic Church and this genocide. Another close-up shows the governor sweating then cuts back to another close-up of the Prefet’s mouth talking as the camera pans up to his eyes that have widened with a crazed stare saying, “We are going to clean the whole country. It is your job to tell them that it is up to them to win this war…” The camera lingers on the Prefet’s crazed eyes: “After we are finished there will be no going back to living together because they’ll be no one for us to go back to live with.” What we see as the viewer here is unadulterated, baseless self-righteous hatred and a belief system that has instigated justification for superiority through ruthless power devoid of any human values.

Other scenes with close-ups of eyes continue to lend to the emotional impact of the film as it is through the eyes that many emotions and stories can be seen. The range of shock, intense fear and horror is seen in the close-up shot of the eyes of Batiste’s (who is seen in love with the girl in the beginning of the film) friend who finds Batiste’s family slaughtered in their home. In a following scene, the close-up of the priest’s (who later rapes Josette, Batiste’s virgin girlfriend) closed eyes in prayer suddenly open to look up where the scene cuts to a mural relief of religious figures, indicating the connection to religious mastery of natives and the priest’s later abusive actions of superiority and power. Later we see a close-up of the defeat and fear in Josette’s eyes after speaking to a Belgiun soldier who tells her he cannot take her family with them. Another interesting close-up is the reflection of the Priest in a French soldier’s eye who is describing the two tribes as animals to the Catholic priest who, in turn, describes them as children. These two characters are merely reflections of each other, colluding in the belief that both the Tutsi’s and the Hutu’s are the “other,” cementing their colonialist superiority. And finally, the incredible sadness of the massacre that takes the life of Josette’s father in the close-up of her younger brother’s tear-filled eyes as he witnesses his father being killed before he also is, and in the close-up of Josette’s tear-filled eyes before the priest sends her to witness the massacre in the church.

Other scenes remind us of the Holocaust such as when the governor rounds up the Tutsi boys of the village while he reads off the names of those to be taken into a house and burned. This is reminiscent of the way the Nazi’s called those who were to be burned in the concentration camp ovens. The shaved heads of the young boys are similar to the shaved heads of the Jews. The billowing black smoke rising from the house as it is burning is also analogous to the billowing black smoke of the ovens in the camps like Auschwitz. And in another revealing scene, when a Hutu daughter innocently asks why the Tutsi’s are different than they are, her mother tells her because they are tall, thin, small nose, head shape etc. Basically, their appearance is their only crime, as the Nazi’s believed of the Jews. It is evident that 100 Days tells an important story of a process so insidious and powerful that it effects unspeakable actions of people against others. Ultimately, it is the allure of power that seems to be the motivational force behind the senseless acceptance of a reality that goes against human decency. It is the troubling story of a psychological enigma that is both historical, and, unfortunately, perhaps unstoppable.

March 25, 1998, in Kigali, Rwanda President Clinton apologizes to the victims of genocide...

"... the international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy, as well. We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope ..."

May 7, 1998, in Kigali, Rwanda U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan apologizes to the Parliament of Rwanda...

"... The world must deeply repent this failure. Rwanda's tragedy was the world's tragedy. All of us who cared about Rwanda, all of us who witnessed its suffering, fervently wish that we could have prevented the genocide. Looking back now, we see the signs which then were not recognized. Now we know that what we did was not nearly enough--not enough to save Rwanda from itself, not enough to honor the ideals for which the United Nations exists. We will not deny that, in their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda ..."
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline).

“The Canadian Foreign Minister, Bill Graham, told the conference that ten years after the genocide the international community had still not learned how to stop such killings from happening again. ‘We lack the political will to achieve the necessary agreement on how to put in place the type of measures that will prevent a future Rwanda from happening,’" he said (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3573229.stm).

Faat Kine - Film by Ousmane Sembene

Faat Kine, like most other films of Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene, is a portrait done in the cinema engage style. Sembene, the Father of African Cinema, says, "The artist is like a mirror. His work reflects and synthesizes the problems, the struggles, and hopes of his people" (qtd. in Pfaff). With this in mind, one can perceive in this film the wide perspective of various social ills in post-colonial Senegal while simultaneously viewing a close-up study of an African woman who has risen above the patriarchal constrictions of her gender. Sembene says, "Africa's society and economy are held together today by women.” And this is the crux of Faat Kine premiered in 2000 about a forty-year-old single mother of two teenagers who has risen to wealth and power through hard work, perseverance over patriarchal control, and ownership of a Dakar gas station.

Throughout the film Sembene cleverly frames many shots with parts of cars either totally in the frame, partially in the frame, or moving in and out of the frame to remind us of the living contradiction that is Senegal. What better icon to use than cars and a gas station to represent modernity in the midst of an old third world country. Cars represent status symbols, individuality and power, and are remnants of colonization that seem to intrude throughout the ancient landscape in the film. In addition, gas stations are a male dominant business and Sembene chooses this venue to show Kine’s unique position of female power in this dominant patriarchal society. As the film begins, Sembene’s panned view of Dakar, Senegal’s bustling capital, offers a vast image of a city that is both a mixture of old and new living interchangeably. The viewer is immediately struck by the movement of cars speeding through the panned shot of what looks like a modern city with high-rise buildings lining the horizon. But this wider perspective that gives a sort of gestalt of post-colonial Senegal narrows with a subsequent scene that focuses on Kine’s pristine blue car driving to her gas station. The shot from the point of view behind her car places it centrally in the frame’s composition as she stops to let a few traditionally dressed women carrying buckets on their heads and babies on their backs cross the street trafficked by modern cars and exhaust. The women slowly walk out of the frame as we see Kine’s car powerfully press forward illustrating the contradiction between tradition and modernity both in the general landscape and specifically in the roles of women.

Not surprisingly, many scenes take place in Kine’s gas station and especially in her office where she is filmed most regally seated behind her desk, which looks out through slated windows onto her gas station kingdom. She calls her main attendant, (attendant to Kine, the gas station queen) with a sort of Marx brother’s brass horn that honks like an old bicycle or car horn. This comic touch adds to the visual message of both the power of a car’s horn and her power, which are connected. Cars come and go in many scenes. Sembene’s use of close-up of a woman’s hand with a gold bracelet handing money to the attendant framed by the side of her car, gives the impression that the car has a human arm, that the car and human are one; illustrative of how identity is connected with what we drive. In fact, Sembene takes us inside the car where the whole frame is the car and through a mirror shot of the woman in the driver’s seat looking in her rearview mirror as the attendant looks closely at the money she has given him, we begin to identify her. It isn’t until she is forced to get out of her car after the attendant shows Kine her fraudulent French money that we cement the realization that this is an arrogant, wealthy, young African woman. Kine does not accept this money nor the fake gold bracelet the woman attempts to pass off as payment, forcing the woman to leave her car (her “other” expensive accessory) at Kine’s station until she brings legitimate Senegalese money. Kine inhibits this woman from both leaving Senegal and committing a crime. In essence, Kine administers not only transportation, which is to say that she administers movement, but also morality. Kine is moving Africa into the future, changing the face of corruption, gender stereotypes and patriarchal abuses, and she is most definitely in the driver’s seat.

Cars frame other notable scenes as when Kine arrives at her station with her teenage son and daughter who have both successfully graduated from high school and are going on to college. As they exit her car, Kine stands on the driver’s side and reaches over the top of it to hold each of her children’s hands. The top of the car frames the bottom of the following three or four shot/reverse shots as Kine tells them that she will take out a loan to pay for their college if she has to. The car is not only between them, but supporting them as they are connected to each other physically, emotionally and genetically; symbolic of the importance and relevance of this object in their lives.

Through flashbacks of her story told by her mother we understand Kine’s character that has been shaped by African patriarchal hegemony. We find out that Kine worked her way up from a gas station attendant when very young after the birth of her illegitimate daughter by the seduction of her teacher. This ended her studies to become a lawyer when she is expelled. In another scene framed by cars, Kine goes to the parking lot after lunching with her girlfriends, and finds that her car is blocked by another car. The narrative that follows introduces her son’s long lost father as he approaches her after many years while she’s waiting for the owner of the blocking car. The following scenes are framed by either a wide shot of the cars in the parking lot or by a medium shot of her and her car. We get the back story of Kine and the father of her son through a flashback she has while sitting in her car looking at him; how he falsely represents himself and robs her of her savings. Surrounded and connotatively supported by the parked cars, the symbol of her success and modernity, she appears a formidable force to reckon with as she confronts this old relic of Africa with the sins he perpetrated on her and their son. She “runs him down” with her words. Earlier she asks her children “what category of man are your fathers?” The absentee fathers of her children both come back into their lives, but the corruption they bestowed on Kine is symbolic of the corruption this generation of men bestowed on post-colonial Africa. The owner of the blocking car eventually comes and it is Jean, a self-made honorable man as Kine is a self-made honorable woman. Together their children connive to get them married, but Kine and Jean are already attracted to each other. Symbolically, his car has allowed her to confront an aspect of the past. The contrast between Jean and the father of her son (in addition to past and future) framed with the cars around them becomes apparent. Neither of her children’s fathers owns a car, but Jean does and in an act of generosity we see him offer to take this man into his car to his home. But not before Kine and Jean exchange dialogue at the end of this narrative as she infuriatingly tells him to hurry and move his car because it is costing her money. He asks her why she is so incensed and briefly tries to calm her down. We might see this as a foretelling of Jean’s positive affect on Kine’s life if we are to take the last scene of the film as indication that they will ultimately be together. Even though this final scene is devoid of cars that frame the composition as in many previous scenes, Kine’s regal position in her bedroom chair with arms and legs open in a welcoming sexual come-on, is reminiscent of the power position she affects in her office chair, and indicative that Kine knows who she is and what she wants. She is what she has named her gas station, a “Total” human being.

Pfaff, Françoise. The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene: A Pioneer of African Film. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984.

Xala - Film by Ousmane Sembene

In Ousmane Sembene’s 1975 film Xala, his dedication to cinema engage is very clear. He does not hide the fact that this is a film about the corruption and failure of Senegalese independence from the French. Through somewhat stilted acting and almost laughable action in some scenes, the story focuses on one corrupt Senegalese man, El Hadji Abdou Kader, who is part of the new cabinet and symbolizes the extent of unspoken crimes against the people. Kadar has received the Xala, a curse that causes impotence, and its symbolism to the impotence of this new African regime is obvious. The film begins with a tilt shot of the steps of the government building as we see eight traditionally clad Senegalese men strut up to the top and wave to their people in triumph. This angled tilt shot emphasizes their victory over the French. They enter the chamber office where they proceed to take items representing the French colonization such as busts of French leaders, boots and hats and place them at the top of the stairs. The next shot cuts to the chamber room again where the President of the new regime points to the three French businessmen to leave and the scene cuts to a tilt shot of the steps again as the French ousted leaders pick up these items and walk down and off the frame, denoting the defeat of French colonialization and the take-over of a new African cabinet.

In the following scene, we see a tilt shot downward as a red carpet rolls down the steps to announce the new African regime. They walked up the steps connoting hope of a new and better government, but Sembene diffuses any hope of change. As the new African leaders are shown now clad in business suits walking down the steps each with a briefcase filled with money, they are helped one after another into a waiting line of Mercedes, capitalistic icons. Sembene has many sequences throughout the film that show objects and people in lines. The powerful viewpoint in this scene from the front of this line of Mercedes underlines the rampant corruption that has been internalized by these colonized Africans as we see that they all are no different than the colonizers enjoying the capitalistic perks of being in power.

Kadar has used money he has taken meant to buy supplies for the people to buy a third virgin wife, and even though he is not alone in his corruption techniques and self-reward, this begins his downfall. The wedding party is about to begin and again Sembene uses sequence shots to show the guests arriving, the wedding party of the bride arriving in cars and the Mercedes arriving in sequence just as they left the government building. Through this technique, African society is seen as lemmings where tradition and colonial ideas are followed without challenge or change. Another tilted shot occurs at the end of the wedding party reminiscent of the earlier shot of the traditionally clad new African leaders walking up the steps after forcefully taking over the government. In this scene, the viewpoint is from the back of Kadar, his new bride and her mother leading them silently up the steps to the bedroom where Kadar is about to forcefully take over his virgin wife. This power that Kadar believes he has is a false and pathetic power and we see Kadar’s impotency ooze into all areas of his life when he is ousted from power, loses his two younger wives and is confronted by the beggars seen throughout the film.

In the final scene of the film, the beggars invade his home and one of them reveals that he is responsible for the xala because Kadar had extorted funds and ruined his family. Earlier in the film Sembene introduces us to this group with some sequence shots of them walking and hobbling with sticks or on disfigured legs, which displays their horrible personal conditions. These sequence shots of the beggars places them as a shocking binary to the sequence shots of the Mercedes. These homeless people are portrayed as more generous and self sufficient than the government leaders. In the end, Kadar’s xala is removed by the action of each one of them spitting on Kadar’s naked body. Perhaps Sembene offers another way for the future of Africa than post-colonial corruption when he has a medicine man say to Kadar, “What one hand removes, another can put back.”