Life, Above All (2010)
Khomotso Manyaka, Keaobaka Makanyane, Harriet Lenabe, Lerato Myelase. Directed by Oliver Schmitz. Northern Sotho, with English subtitles.
Oliver Schmitz directed one of my favorite chapters in Paris, je t’aime, drawing a jagged line of rising and falling emotion across a poetic handful of minutes. There are sections of that film I like more, but none of them combines story with feeling, while also teetering on the head of a pin the way the Schmitz vignette does. I had to see something else from him, and Life, Above All was a 2011 finalist for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, so it seemed like a good place to start.
Set in South Africa, it offers the story of Chanda, a twelve-year-old girl whose mother is so grieved over the death of Chanda’s sister that she sends Chanda to pick out the infant-sized coffin. The baby’s father is Chanda’s stepfather, and he is so messed up on alcohol that his absence from the household while spending all his time with another woman in town would be a blessing if it didn’t shame his wife so publicly.
The town is not exactly affluent, but neither is it the kind of place where American charities send assistance. People live in houses with electricity, some of them with telephone landlines and modern appliances. Yet its residents seem to share a deliberate lack of sophistication about certain symptoms of illness, and when anyone falls mysteriously ill, nobody says the word, but everyone’s thinking it. Out of sheer necessity, Chanda takes responsibility for keeping her mother and siblings on their feet.
There are whispers about her best friend, who is poorer and without supportive parents, who may resort to hanging around at the truck stop in order to pay for necessities, but Chanda swears loyalty to her friend, adding to her self-appointed duties a tenacious defense against the gossip.
This story of bravery is kind of a tough sell, and the film works admirably to be convincing. Still, a small bit of my disbelief refused to be suspended. I mostly did cave in, because there’s a bit more to it than just others being beneficiaries of this uncommon bravery. The film takes us to something I really do want to believe in—that one person’s righteousness has the power not merely to save some, but to transform others.
My inability to go all in with this film means it doesn’t have quite the emotional payoff I want, and I can’t quite explain it. Maybe I’ve seen it before, or maybe I’m a grouch, or maybe I need the director to convince me that this girl is real, perhaps by telling me more about her. There is one really nice scene where she is invited to a party, and she gets to be the young schoolgirl she’s supposed to be. I need more of this. I do love the ending of this picture; I just don’t completely love the stuff that leads up to it.
7/10 (IMDb rating)
70/100 (Criticker rating)
Life, Above All (2010)
Khomotso Manyaka, Keaobaka Makanyane, Harriet Lenabe, Lerato Myelase. Directed by Oliver Schmitz. Northern Sotho, with English subtitles.
Oliver Schmitz directed one of my favorite chapters in Paris, je t’aime, drawing a jagged line of rising and falling emotion across a poetic handful of minutes. There are sections of that film I like more, but none of them combines story with feeling, while also teetering on the head of a pin the way the Schmitz vignette does. I had to see something else from him, and Life, Above All was a 2011 finalist for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, so it seemed like a good place to start.
Set in South Africa, it offers the story of Chanda, a twelve-year-old girl whose mother is so grieved over the death of Chanda’s sister that she sends Chanda to pick out the infant-sized coffin. The baby’s father is Chanda’s stepfather, and he is so messed up on alcohol that his absence from the household while spending all his time with another woman in town would be a blessing if it didn’t shame his wife so publicly.
The town is not exactly affluent, but neither is it the kind of place where American charities send assistance. People live in houses with electricity, some of them with telephone landlines and modern appliances. Yet its residents seem to share a deliberate lack of sophistication about certain symptoms of illness, and when anyone falls mysteriously ill, nobody says the word, but everyone’s thinking it. Out of sheer necessity, Chanda takes responsibility for keeping her mother and siblings on their feet.
There are whispers about her best friend, who is poorer and without supportive parents, who may resort to hanging around at the truck stop in order to pay for necessities, but Chanda swears loyalty to her friend, adding to her self-appointed duties a tenacious defense against the gossip.
This story of bravery is kind of a tough sell, and the film works admirably to be convincing. Still, a small bit of my disbelief refused to be suspended. I mostly did cave in, because there’s a bit more to it than just others being beneficiaries of this uncommon bravery. The film takes us to something I really do want to believe in—that one person’s righteousness has the power not merely to save some, but to transform others.
My inability to go all in with this film means it doesn’t have quite the emotional payoff I want, and I can’t quite explain it. Maybe I’ve seen it before, or maybe I’m a grouch, or maybe I need the director to convince me that this girl is real, perhaps by telling me more about her. There is one really nice scene where she is invited to a party, and she gets to be the young schoolgirl she’s supposed to be. I need more of this. I do love the ending of this picture; I just don’t completely love the stuff that leads up to it.
7/10 (IMDb rating)
70/100 (Criticker rating)
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