Questions for Mwese's La Vie Est Belle and Diawara's "African Cinema Today"

Hi all,

Sorry that we didn’t get a chance to watch the film to its end; you didn’t miss much: it was a happy end.

In any event, here’s a quick synapsis of the film: Kourou (Papa Wemba) journeys to Kinshasa to become a musician, gets a job as Mamou’s servant, and falls in love with Kabibi. Mamou’s husband Nvouandou consults with a local witch doctor about his impotency and is told to take a second virginal wife. Nvouandou then marries Kabibi. Mamou pretends to approve, but secretly sets Kabibi up with Kourou with whom she is already infatuated. Both couples, Kourou and Kabibi, and Mamou and Nvouandou, end up in love and happy, and Kourou’s musicianship is finally recognized. La Vie Est Belle, for real.

Bio of Ngangura Mwese: Mwese was born in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, at 20 he was awarded a scholarship to study in Belgium. There, while still a student, he made two short films before he returned to the DRC and began teaching at several universities in Kinshasa and making TV documentaries. Later he returned to Europe and with funding from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he filmed La Vie Est Belle with Benoit Lamy (a Belgian filmmaker). Mwese then founded Sol’Oeil Films in Kinshasa and Film Sud in Brussels in order to preserve his filmmaking independence. Sol'Oeil Films co-produced La Vie est Belle with Lamy Films.

Prompt: Manthia Diawara argues that social realist films like Ngangura Mwese’s La Vie Est Belle broke with an intellectual filmmaking tradition and introduced working class and pop culture themes to African cinema. Instead, Diawara argues, of pointing fingers, social realist films use humor to expose the hypocrisy of the upper class. He offers an intriguing interpretation of the film, adding that by casting the popular Congolese musician Papa Wemba in the role of Kourou, a poor, country boy, yearning for fame, Mwese strategically ensures an African audience for his film. There are many comparisons and contrasts to be made between this film and the two Senegalese films that we watched last week. I am more interested, though, in how you interpret this film through your own particular cultural lens. What does “life is rosy” mean? What cultural messages are conveyed through this film—in your opinion?