Two warriors on the lookout for Vitchoua the lion king

Gloom and hopelessness pervade the country as drought persists, decimating Maasai heards. As the drought drags and heat takes on a new dimension, the elders of the community say they have been cursed and that to appease the wrath of the Red god and save the community from imminent death, only the mane of Vitchoua, king of the lions, must be offered to him.

This is the setting of Massaï: the Rain Warriors (Massaï, les Guerriers de la Pluie), A film featuring Maasai morans speaking Maa in their own vast savannah world, that was screened in Kenya on November 20 2004 ahead of its French premiere in December 2004. The authenticity of this production that was hailed by Hubert Fournier, the ambassador of France to Kenya as epitomising the Franco-Kenya collaboration on culture and by Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) as a simple story of courage and adventure that does not draw its appeal from star power or special effects, was said to have taken four years to complete and launch.

Merono, the hero who sacrificed his life to save his community

The chairman of KTB said that this was an illustration that a good story can be told without reliance on well-known actors, massive budgets or special effects. Noting that tourism and cinema have always gone together, KTB said had received one of the highest numbers of tourists following the shooting of Out of Africa in Kenya that starred Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in 1985. “Smaller non-Hollywood films, such as the Award winning German film “Nowhere in Africa”, or the Bollywood Hindi films shot in Kenya have also brought us interest and therein traffic.”

The première of Massaï: the Rain Warriors marked the opening of the first Week of French Images Week in November. The film, shot on location in Kenya in 2003, directed by Pascal Plisson and produced by Stéphane Parthenay. Massaï, les Guerriers de la Pluie, with subtitles in English, French and Spanish, will be released to the world in 2005. Although a good film, it is unclear how the Maasai warriors who are looking for the head of Vitchoua should end up in Turkana territory and a fight ensues.

The two communities are not even neighbours. The film also shows that the whole land is inhabited by Maasai and animals and, of course, the Turkana. Had the warriors with whom they fought been Pokot, Kalenjin or Kikuyu, the film would be somehow convincing. It is also unclear how the warriors stumble into the land of beautifully adorned Boran/Ghalla/Somali women who take care of them to the extent that one warrior who had fainted and came to his senses in the presence of the attractive women bending over him remarks that he thought he had died and gone to heaven. Heaven would be a foreign concept to the Maasai who are having to sacrifice an animal to a god to have mercy on their land, wouldn’t it? Film may be fiction, but as a piece of art, it ought to have some semblance of fact as it draws from real life.

And this point reminds one of The Oath, a short film that is described by Jua Kali Films, its producers, as being the first narrative film on the Mau Mau. Although said to be starring Mau Mau, the film is in English and its soundtrack in Mijikenda and thus it is robbed of its authenticity as a film unfolding in 1952. Would it not have been better for it to be shot in Gikuyu with subtitles in English? Language, soundtrack and setting do accentuate the message of a production. Rather than attribute Kenya’s independence to Mau Mau, the filmmakers should have left this controversial interpretation to historians.

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