THE BLUE EYES OF YONTA
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1993 Max Hoffmann
Rating: 8.0 (B, ****) Seen 5/6/93 SF Film Festival Date Released: none, no distributor for North America Country of Origin: Guinea-Bissau/Portugal 1992 In Portuguese and Creole with English subtitles Running Length: 95 min Rating: none. No sex/violence/language Cast: Maysa Marta, Antonio Simao Mendes, Pedro Dias, Dina Vaz Director: Flora Gomes Producer: Paulo de Sousa Screenplay: Gomes, David Lang, Ina Cesaire, Manuel Rambout Barceles Camera: Dominique Gentil Editor: Dominique Paris
IN A NUTSHELL: touching, quirky foreign film about a country you've probably never heard of, populated with people you'll never forget. Visually compelling, due to splashy native color, flawed by wooden acting amongst the supporting cast. At times reminiscent of the surrealistic images/humor of a Luis Bunuel film. Overall the film is a refreshing, original experience.
Yonta's eyes aren't really blue. Perhaps the anonymous love-letter praising her blue eyes refers to her azure eye shadow, striking against her burnished ebony skin. Or perhaps it is a reference to the reflected blue from the disco lights of "El Tropicana." Maysa Marta is a very compelling presence in the screen role of Yonta, the most beautiful girl in the tiny west African country of Guinea-Bissau (a former Portuguese colony which achieved independence in 1973.) Yonta is the catalyst that affects several lives in her orbit.
Far from self-obsessed with her own hypnotic beauty, she is very practical and level-headed. Though living in a Third World country, this girl knows what she wants and where she's going. We see her handle sidewalk wolves and customer with equal diplomacy. She's in love with the older, emotionally remote Vincente (Antonio Simao Mendes), while her young secret admirer, the directionless Ze (Pedro Dias) pines away for her. When her tipsy girl friend reads her anonymous love letter out loud to the disco crowd (unaware that the painfully shy writer is in attendance), we follow a path with the film that delves deep into areas of personal pride and hurt.
The film has an intriguing setting, a former African colony, twenty years after the revolution ... when reality has set in. Power failures occur with alarming frequency, and the camera captures the domino effects on everyday life, e.g., no refrigeration, no fish, no means of income for the local market women. If nothing else, the film will make you pause, and imagine the human price paid in so many page one stories of famine and revolution we skim over during morning coffee. A strong sense of family and community buoys the film, from the neighborhood children who sneak an evicted widows belongings back into her house, to the bonds between girlfriends preparing for a wedding. Revolutionary heros cope with living in the past, while Yonta, the fountainhead of the new generation, makes peace with the unwelcome present.
Although the film is a satisfying experience overall, much of the supporting cast has a very wooden acting style by western standards. (Who knows, it may be the normal demeanor in this remote land.) I recommend this film, though be forewarned that as with Opera, many allowances need to be made in view of the different cultural values, and approach to presentation. The film is filled with several unforgettable images, from the dark, brooding Vincente conversing with the carved statues of his ancestors, to the Dali-esque wedding that the film culminates in.
From the film program:
Gomes paints a picture not just of the Africa that weeps,
but of "the other face--the one that laughs, the one
that contains hope." However things turn out--for the
lovers, for the country--it is their life to live. As
Gomes puts it, "There is nothing worse than living
by proxy."
.
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