A Better Tomorrow
by Michael Joshua Rowin
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung
The first ever film to feature dialogue primarily spoken in the Kinyarwanda language, Munyurangabo is the result of a filmmaking class taught by Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung and a script by American screenwriter Samuel Anderson, but what might have easily been a crippling contradiction in terms — an authentic Rwandan film helmed by Westerners — is instead a marvel of sincerity and humanity that refuses to conform to past-tense genocide remembrance. The raw, naturally worn-in film follows a journey undertaken by the young man of the title, Ngabo (Jeff Rutagengwa), and friend Sangwa (Eric Ndorunkundiye). Along the way, prodigal son Sangwa stops off at his parents' rural village, where he's at first chastised for running away and then re-accepted by a forgiving though short-tempered father (Jean Marie Vianney Nkurikiyinka).
The first half intentionally frustrates in its shapelessness, but the film slowly arrives, along with the secretive lead characters, at a purpose. Sangwa is a Hutu whose dad doesn't trust Ngabo, a Tutsi; Ngabo's family, including a father who he struggles to remember, was killed by Hutus in the 90s genocide. Thus Munyurangabo and its non-professional cast/collaborators contemplate the trauma of the past and the delicate promise of reconciliation through the painful legacies bequeathed to one generation by another — the direct address of Edouard Uwayo passionately reading a long poem called "Liberation is a Journey" is an emotional and thematic peak. It's to Chung and Anderson's credit that the hope they envision is as hard-earned as their film's accessible yet tough realism.
May 29-June 4 at Anthology Film Archives
