FILM INTERVIEW: DJO TUNDA WA MUNGA
Writer/Director/Producer of 'Viva Riva!' Puts Congolese Cinema on the Map in a Big Way
Guns. Blood. Sex. Torture. Pimpin’ bad guys. Ho’s getting slapped up. The Big Score. And Mama being proved right that her bad son would come to no good. But don’t think you’re watching circa 1973 grade-A Blaxploitation in a sleazy Times Square cinema, let alone the plot of a far more respectable film noir picture from the 1950s. Instead, you are witnessing the very bad behavior that occurs on the streets of Kinshasa in the African Republic of Congo. It’s a dog-eat-dog place where one good-time gangster arrives to make his fortune and gets a hell of a lot of fellow backstabbing rogues killed. This is the wildly entertaining world where greed and lust rule all in Viva Riva!, a film that marks the birth of the nearly non-existent Congolese movie industry -- a country that doesn’t even have one movie theater.
Spoken in a foreign tongue, Riva!’s ultra-violent milieu seems impossibly strange...yet it’s a familiar territory that any fan of cinematic pulp fiction will feel right at home on. And that’s the entertainingly accessible point of Riva!’s bilingual auteur Djo Tunda Wa Munga. Born in Kinshasa and nurtured in the visual arts in Belgium, Munga first directed documentaries that dealt head-on with the ills of AIDS and mental trauma in his homeland. Having been given the title of an African Trailblazer by MIPTV, Munga’s first feature now shows crime as a state of mind in Kinshasa, with a love of cinema being Riva’s second-biggest overwhelming sensation. As grittily well made as any American gangster indie, Viva Riva! has been winning international festival acclaim for Munga in the best Tarantino-loving tradition. But beyond showing darkest Africa, Viva Riva! also signals the light of a vibrant filmmaking talent -- one that could just light Congolese filmmaking up in the process.
Daniel Schweiger: The first thing that hit me when I watched Viva Riva! was that it was made by someone who really appreciates the same kind of American grindhouse films that Quentin Tarantino made his bones on...
Djo Tunda Wa Munga: I love cinema. I love history of cinema. You could say that American grindhouse films actually began with directors like Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder. They left Europe and Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and came to Hollywood to make films that would entertain an American audience. You also had European filmmakers after that, like Sergio Leone, who was inspired by Akira Kurosawa, who was in turn inspired by American films. So I think we all come back to the same group of people. We’re a family of Cinephiles. We all do the same job, actually. But what’s most important is relating to the environment or our film in an honest way.
DS: A lot of Americans likely think of the Congo as a place of unrelenting savagery and violence. And I don’t think their opinions will change after they watch Viva Riva! Did you ever think it was your responsibility to make something “nicer” as the first Congolese film?
DM: Not at all. It’s so important to be free in your mind and to be honest with your work. At the end of the day, when it comes to art, your creativity is related to your desire and what you really feel inside. That’s what you express to an audience. So I don’t really think about how someone from the west would react to the movie. And what does that mean, the “westerner?” They’re from America, France, Germany, and Australia -- all different countries with different approaches to the cinema. Maybe I was afraid that the African audience would say, “Well, Djo, your film is nicely shot, but it’s like a movie for westerners." That could really be an insult to them. But that didn’t happen. They really supported Viva Riva!
DS: Viva Riva! also reminded me the classic hard-boiled film noirs, where every sinner got their moral just desserts...
DM: I studied those films. I was really inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog. It’s a thriller where a guy loses his gun, and you discover the city as he’s looking for it. Kurosawa really makes you feel the essence of post-war Japan. I found that very interesting as a concept. Then there’s Out of the Past, which has the most terrible, fantastic femme fatale. She was so innocent but at the same time so dangerous. Jane Greer was fantastic in that part.
DS: Viva Riva! is also likely to take heat just for the amount of abuse that its women go through...
DM: You have to stick to what you see. The relations between men and women are terrible in the Congo, but it’s also terrible in Africa, which is quite a conservative place. Women there suffer a lot, both psychologically and physically, so I wanted to talk about the domestic violence, sexuality, and prostitution that go on there with my female characters, whether they were good or dangerous.
DS: We view movies like Scarface as “just” entertainment. But in places like the Congo, the people try to actually live like movie mob bosses...
DM: Don’t forget that we’ve long gone through the mindset of 32 years of dictatorship. It’s just like having gangsters running a country. We already have references as gangsters. So when the criminals get money, they want to dress well, like Tony Montana, and even have a tiger. That was the framework for my references in Viva Riva!
DS: There are no cinemas in the Congo. But was there censorship in the making of the film?
DM: We’ve had enough censorship for so many years, so people just want to express themselves. Nobody came to read my script or watch us film. I also tried to avoid any problems with the story from beginning, so it went okay when we had a screening for our Minister of Culture.
DS: What’s the situation like in Kinshasa right now?
DM: Tense. Jean-Pierre Bemba lost the last election and didn’t want to give up power, so you had 600 armed men in town. And Bemba’s headquarters weren’t very far from my home when the fighting broke out. Policeman started shooting. And you realize this isn’t some American action film. This is real, yet the tension as just like in a western -- as if you were in a gunfight at the O.K. Corral! It was crazy in the streets, with bullets flying over your head, yet it’s nothing like an American film. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in Kinshasa every day, but from time to time, there’s an odd burst of violence.
DS: Jose Padilha directed a terrific Brazilian action film called The Elite Squad. Now he’s up to do the remake of Robocop. What do you think your chances are for Hollywood seeing this movie and giving you the same shot?
DM: As an African filmmaker, my true hope is to bring a new world to audiences. If Hollywood wants to make a film with me, then fine. They can fly in a fantastic actor -- Forest Whitaker -- and I can write something for him to shoot in Congo. My idea is to always make a good, modestly budgeted film that I have control of. That would be fine. But going to make Robocop, Wolverine, or whatever -- that’s not my dream, even though many filmmakers can dream about working in Hollywood with the all the money and distribution that comes with it. But it’s all a game.
DS: Do you think you’ll have any recognition as the man who truly gave birth to the Congolese film industry?
DM: The only responsibility I have is to achieve as much as I can as an artist. The recognition that I’m looking for, and the kind that I hope will benefit my country, is demonstrating with Viva Riva! that you can bring a film to life in the Congo, and be honest about what it’s like there. I don’t want to fail in that sense. Some might say Viva Riva! is not an “African” film. But which type of Africa are we talking about? Everything I put into this film, I’ve witnessed myself. So we don’t have to stick to this old fantasy image of an Africa where everything is nice and smooth. What I want people to say most about Viva Riva! is that it’s an honest representation of hard work and artistic expression.
Music Box Films' 'Viva Riva!' opens on June 10th in Los Angeles at the Nuart Theater.
Interview transcribed by Peter Hackman.
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