FILM REVIEW: VIVA RIVA!

Riva (Patsha Bay Mukuna) in Viva Riva.

Shaft-Ed. lives 

By Ed Rampell 

The Black exploitation films that burst upon the screen in the 1970s with flicks such as Shaft and Super Fly have largely faded to black here in America, with the exception of genre spoofs such as Eddie Griffin’s 2002 Undercover Brother, where Afros are sources of ridicule. But judging by writer-director Djo Tunda Wa Munga’s award-winning Viva Riva!, Blaxploitation is alive and well in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where this high voltage gangsta flick full of sex and violence was shot and set. 

But don’t expect to watch Tarzan and Cheetah swinging from tree to tree in the jungle; there isn’t a rain forest in sight in this African movie. The only thing worse than the West’s modern cities are Third World underdeveloped, overpopulated, impoverished metropolises where basic utilities such as water and electricity often don’t work -- think traffic jams with no power for the stoplights -- as in the DRC’s capital of Kinshasa that is, apparently accurately, called a “shithole” in the film..

The plot of the stylishly shot and edited Viva Riva! is simple enough. Returning from Angola to Kinshasa, a popular, handsome, charming, young man named Riva (the likable Patsha Bay Mukune, a musician making his acting debut) is determined to get rich quick by ripping off his Angolan boss, Cesar (Angolan actor Hoji Fortuna), in order to make what a Shaft movie called his “big score.” A criminal overlord, the sadistic Cesar doesn’t take kindly to his former underling’s theft and is hot on his trail, wreaking mayhem and murder in his wake as he relentlessly tracks Riva down in Kinshasa. 

Along the rollicking way, big spending Riva is smitten by the redheaded Nora, portrayed by the exquisitely beautiful Manie Malone in her feature debut. Unfortunately for Riva, Nora appears to be the kept woman of another thug, Azor (the menacing Diplome Amekindra), although she repeatedly insists she’s “no whore” (apparently because her father was an English teacher). Fortunately, Azor prefers to watch porn featuring unattractive women to sexually satisfying Nora, whom he presumably keeps as an ornament to burnish his gangsta image. 

There’s genuine chemistry between Riva and Nora, and in a pic full of sex, they have extremely erotic scenes. The sequence where Nora tells Riva to give her a “real kiss” is truly arousing, as is their bathtub lovemaking interlude. The latter is clearly a homage to the famously hot aquatic sex scene between Ron O’Neal and Sheila Frazier in Super Fly, and if anything, Viva Riva!’s watery rapture is even steamier. In fact, Viva Riva!’s cinematic references are part of the flick’s good fun appeal for cinephiles. In addition to Blaxploitation pix, Munga, who studied cinema at Belgium’s INSAS (Institut National Superieur des Arts de Spectacle), gives sly nods and winks to 1931’s Little Caesar, starring Edward G. Robinson; Jean-Luc Godard’s 1959 Breathless, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo; and the 1972 Jamaica cult classic, The Harder They Come. 

With its relentless gunplay, torture, etc., and candid sex, Viva Riva! is more of a “dick flick” (to coin a phrase) than a “chick flick.” The frank sexuality includes lesbian trysts between the corrupt female military officer called Commandante (Marlene Longage) and the bar girl, Malou (Angelique Mbumba). Some may consider the film's brutality, nudity and promiscuity to play into stereotypes of blacks in general, and of Africans in particular.

Nevertheless, Viva Riva! swept the African equivalent of the Academy Awards and won the 2011 Pan African Film Festival’s Best Feature Film prize. Beneath the film's shoot-’em-up, hands up, get it up sensibility, a critical eye might just be at work, scouring and skewering the former Belgian Congo, which fell from grace after the assassination of nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba, who was either saintly or just didn’t live long enough to overstay his welcome in power and turn into just another African tin pot strongman, like his despicable despotic successor, Mobutu. 

The film's second most interesting character may well be Anto, a street hustling streetwise kid well-played by Jordan N’Tunga, who befriends the appealing Riva. The final shot of him is rather haunting, and refers to some characters’ back stories, which are not spelled out but indicate that something went wrong with their childhoods, as their innocence was lost and corrupted. Perhaps this is a metaphor for post-colonial Africa? 

This subtitled movie is for fans of gangsta and Blaxploitation pix, as well as for serious cineastes interested in where African cinema is currently at. The realistic Kinshasa setting is a contemporary reflection of 21^st century Africa, just as the musical I wrote the book for, Still Standing, is, with its urban Nairobi background and real life depiction of rapper Gleam Joel living the thug life in Kenya. Instead of Tarzan, Jane (Goodall and the Ape Man’s mate), Dian Fossey, Karen Blixen and other white characters starring in movies made about and in sub-Saharan Africa, it is now the indigenous people starring in movies about their lives. And they are getting behind, as well as in front of the camera more and more now. By some accounts Nigeria’s Nollywood has the world’s third largest movie industry, and Viva Riva! is at the cutting edge of Africa’s cinematic new wave. Call this refreshing if jolting indigenous trend: Get Out of Africa.