The Politics of Art & Authenticity

I loved this movie. From a broad perspective, this documentary falls under the same category as any movie that portrays a horrific, unbelievable atmosphere. It made me think of the movie Slumdog Millionaire, another movie that I love. It made me think of other films I have seen where the characters are faced with abominable situations, but somehow find the strength to go on – a story of hope. In his film, Kinshasa Kids, Marc-Henri Wajnberg, uses music as a critical theme in setting the tone for the movie. The music, whether it is background music or live music, follows the story from beginning to end. Music plays an important part of the movie. Whether it is happy or sad, hopeful or full of despair, the music is always there, adding to the tone, making the viewer empathize with the kids’ struggle for survival. If this documentary is supposed to portray Kinshasa, make you feel like you’re a part of it, living and partaking in adventures with those kids, Wajnberg succeeded. I felt like I was really there.

The basis of the movie is a few poor, starving, ostracized kids in Kinshasa that have a dream to create a band. This dream is their hope, their reason to get up in the morning. The film chronicles the kids’ adventures, struggles, and formation of the band. Background music constantly enhances the movie and, along with the footage, helps the movie come alive. When the kids are sleeping and making sure no one is stealing from them, trying to find food, or having fun and getting the band together, the music emphasizes the extremity of the situation. Wajnberg edits the movie in a specifically stylish way. The movie feels very real, as he doesn’t employ big, fancy cameras with staged actor, but rather the real life Kinshasans on the real streets of Kinshasa. Sometimes he will zoom up close if he is running after someone, with shaky, real-life footsteps, and other times he will zoom out and film in color. He interviews real people, who speak in their own language, with subtitles. We see real Kinshasa houses, streets, people and their families. The film keeps this theme, of interviews, going back and forth between the kids’ adventures and other people living in Kinshasa.

Music does not reverse the kids’ situations. It does not try to fake the viewer into thinking the kids’ situation is really not that bad. That the kids are used it to their lives by now, and they have given up trying to deal with the reality of the situation, and now music is their only escape. Music does not detract from the severity, the reality, the point of the movie. The music shows that kids will always have a goal, no matter what. Their lives, their situations, their atmosphere will not stop that. When the kids want to make a band, they take advantage of the resources they have, and use everyday items to make their make-shift instruments.

Kids will be kids. Even when faced with abject poverty, disease, and a dim future, they will have fun, laugh, cry, play, and dream.

They will always dream.

Kinshasa Kids is a documentary-style film that uses real stories as the basis for its actors’ scripted performances. Director Marc-Henri Wajnberg uses musical interludes to restore some childishness and carefree amusement to the homeless children who are unfortunately immersed in the struggle of day-to-day survival. Though thousands of children are forced onto the streets of Kinshasa, Africa for being “witches,” Wajnberg shows how these children take time away from looking for work or scrounging for food in order to perform the music that they love. Even though these children are forced to grow up at a young age, they are still able to enjoy singing, dancing, and just having fun.
Wajnberg keeps returning to this theme of musical silliness, and provides a break from the fighting-to-survive storyline. He achieves this by switching between shots of abject poverty and upbeat performances. Even one of the most confusing and controversial parts of the film, when the young girl Rachel is raped, is then followed by the large closing musical number. The children decide to name their band “The Devil Does Not Exist” which reminds the viewers that although the children seem happy and carefree, they still are forced to live on the streets because they are “witches.” Even though the children themselves mock the notion of witchcraft, there is nothing they can do to change their reputation.
Kinshasa Kids feels like a real documentary, even though it uses actors with scripted performances. This is the power of Wajnberg as an auteur. He’s able to give his film an authentic feel by only basing it on true stories, and by leaving in some unscripted portions. For example, at one point the van in which Bebson, the children’s musical mentor, is riding, gets into an accident. Wajnberg incorporates this totally unscripted event into the film. Also, Kinshasa Kids is shot using only a handheld camera, which also gives it a real-life feel. After I watched Kinshasa Kids, Wajnberg himself got on stage for an audience question and answer session. When asked why he made light of Rachel being raped, he said that he was merely conveying what it’s really like in Kinshasa. A vagabond child being raped is an everyday occurrence that is not met with shock or horror. In fact, upon showing Kinshasa Kids to the local cast and crew, Wajnberg said he noticed that many of them were laughing during this scene. Kinshasa Kids is as authentic a portrayal of Kinshasa as an unscripted documentary would have been.
Kinshasa Kids is very successful at incorporating both aspects of the children’s existence, as vagabonds, and as aspiring performers, without seeming unbelievable. This is because the children get help from an adult, Bebson, and because their instrumental noises are made primarily using everyday objects like walls, containers, and their hands. It seems like the children are resourcefully trying to make their own fun whilst still being forced to live on the streets. The film follows them alternately trying to get work and trying to come up with ideas of how to use their musical talents. This culminates in them making a concert in order to collect donations from audience members.
I found Kinshasa Kids to be informative, thought provoking, and moving – all things that a great documentary should be. I think that Marc-Henri Wajnberg succeeds in doing this by creating his own storyline but making it as close to a real documentary as possible. This allows him to achieve his goals while garnering audience sympathy. And there’s nothing to capture audience attention like a good musical performance.

“Kinshasa Kids” tells the story of a group of youth living impoverished on the streets of the African city, Kinshasa. Accused of being witch-children and causing the problems of Kinshasa, thousands of children have been thrown out of their houses, and a group of them unify to fend for themselves together on the streets. Urged by a “rock star,” they form a band and use music as their outlet. The film follows the kids as they struggle for survival and work to create their band; it concludes with the concert they perform for the entire community.

“Kinshasa Kids” demonstrates that no matter your situation, determination and faith can help you deal with and get through even the hardest of times. Although their physical situation doesn’t change, the kids’ emotional well-being is enhanced by their unity and friendship. They show that you can reach your highest dreams and hopes if you just have the courage and persevere. The head of their band explains that when they meet for music, “they are one.” They need to live to “protect music.” In a world where they have no other reason to live, music becomes their unified fight and their purpose to go on and keep hoping. For them, music and the concert symbolizes optimism for the future.

Wajnberg conveys this idea through music. When the kids are singing and playing their instruments, their faces radiate. They are filled with happiness and hope, and this feeling echoes onto the audience.

The kids discuss the reasons they want to put on the concert: mainly, they want money so they can get off the streets. They want to get an education and eventually get out of Kinshasa. One boy says he wants to do the concert so he can “become a man.”

Wajnberg wrote the script of the film based on the stories that the kids of Kinshasa told him. He says that his film is fiction in a documentary style. Although most of the film is scripted and staged, many parts of it are not. In one part of the film, a man warns another that a “white man” is filming them from behind. This is scripted, but it reflects Wajnberg’s experience in Kinshasa. The film documents the kids’ life on the streets, their struggle for survival. “Kinshasa Kids” evokes emotions of fear and hope. Watching the film, my heart went out to the kids who didn’t choose the life they live and have no means to change it.

Wajnberg’s shaky, unsteady camera films Kinshasa in its authentic state, presenting a very real-life picture of the situation. He presents Kinshasa as he views it, drawing from his experience while filming there. The drama is so intense that it’s hard to consider it may be true, but it’s also difficult to believe that it’s not true. On the one hand, the film is unquestionably fiction – how can something like this actually be taking place? On the other hand, it seems definitely true – how can someone make this up? Wajnberg blends fiction and documentary styles into a film that tells a deep story.

Credit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBWNkyFUQRQ

In Kinshasa, thousands of children are denounced by their families as witches and thrown out into the streets at the young ages of 4 and 5 years old. Kinshasa Kids is a story of survival, of growing up alone, of growing up too young. The children that the film centers around are from the ages ten to thirteen, and their stories are well beyond their years. Kinshasa Kids is about making do with what you have, even when you don’t have anything. It’s about making something to have.

A small group of children form a bond, a brother/sisterhood on the streets, and they help each other out. They work hard jobs to make a little bit of money so they can eat, and they steal and get stolen from. In the middle of the film, the kids sit around a fire and talk about the future. They talk about making enough money to put themselves through school, help their siblings, make sure that they give their own children a better life. And this is how “The Devil Does Not Exist”, the children’s musical band, is formed.

The kids enlist the help of Bebson, a musician who lives on the streets. They work endlessly on their first hit, “Boom Boom Chaka”. And they get let down, time and time again by the unfairness of the streets. The corruption in Kinshasa is expected, but watching these innocent children’s hopeful dreams get shattered, time and time again, is heartbreaking.

At the end of the film, filmmaker Marc-Henri Wajnberg got up and answered some questions about the movie. He made this film to raise awareness about the horrors of Kinshasa, and what happens in the streets. His documentary style is extremely effective because the viewers actually get to see, first hand, what the streets of Kinshasa are like. Although the film was scripted, it is truly reflective of the day-to-day goings on in the streets. Wajnberg was personally arrested four or five times a day while filming, so police corruption was a theme in the movie. He saw little girls raped in the middle of the night, so in the movie, a little girl was raped. He saw kids trying to make it, black and white, in a city of gray, so that is what the movie is about. Certain parts were unscripted though, and I think those parts are what makes Wajnberg an auteur. Fitting in the raw footage is not easy, and it makes the film much more complex and rich. I am sure that this very raw style of film will be a signature element in Wajnberg’s future films, because it shows, without telling, societal norms and practices that cannot be given over as effectively in any other way.

The movie ends with the kids putting on their first concert, with equipment that they paid for legally, and the audience dancing and putting money in a hat. The reverberations of Boom Boom Chaka are heard around Kinshhasa, and the message of those words, that ANYTHING is possible, brings tremendous hope to the viewer. This upbeat end to such a dire film also makes Wajnberg an auteur. It is a real surprise, and it does not mean that tomorrow will be a better day, but it does contribute to the message of the movie—you need to make something to have, and anyone can do it.