★★★½☆
27 April 2017
A movie review of FÉLICITÉ. |
“This isn’t about you and me,” Félicité (Véro Tshanda Beya)
Cinema across the world is waking up to the importance of universal healthcare. How access to such is a fundamental human right. Recent Michael Moore and Ken Loach documentaries have explored the need in the United States and U.K. respectively. Narrative features are also highlighting how people without money are reduced to utter desperation when a system such as Britain’s National Health Service is not available. From THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU and AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER to MANUSCRIPTS DON’T BURN, filmmakers across the planet are waking up to this aspect of social injustice. FÉLICITÉ joins them.
Alain Gomis (director behind the winsome AUJOURD’HUI) understands that unrelenting dourness might put off the casual cinemagoer. (Though, even if a film is grimly tear-inducing, heart can be taken from those works, knowing that there are compassionate people out there who care enough to create a movie.) An ace soundtrack and unsentimental character bonding soften FÉLICITÉ’s harsh depiction of lack of social safety nets.
Cinema across the world is waking up to the importance of universal healthcare. How access to such is a fundamental human right. Recent Michael Moore and Ken Loach documentaries have explored the need in the United States and U.K. respectively. Narrative features are also highlighting how people without money are reduced to utter desperation when a system such as Britain’s National Health Service is not available. From THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU and AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER to MANUSCRIPTS DON’T BURN, filmmakers across the planet are waking up to this aspect of social injustice. FÉLICITÉ joins them.
Alain Gomis (director behind the winsome AUJOURD’HUI) understands that unrelenting dourness might put off the casual cinemagoer. (Though, even if a film is grimly tear-inducing, heart can be taken from those works, knowing that there are compassionate people out there who care enough to create a movie.) An ace soundtrack and unsentimental character bonding soften FÉLICITÉ’s harsh depiction of lack of social safety nets.
Titular Félicité (Véro Tshanda Beya) is a talented singer. Earning a modest living as a singer in Kinshasa, one wonders had she been in a country richer than the Democratic Republic of Congo would she be a star? We know her income is not grand immediately, because it is a struggle to buy a decent fridge. The thrust of FÉLICITÉ comes when her 14-year old son is in a motorcycle accident, and she urgently needs a hefty sum to save his leg from amputation. The hospital will not operate without at least part payment – even that sum is not at hand.
Almost a thriller as the lead races through the city burning bridges, calling in debts, begging and using up last favours. The film impliedly asks the same question as AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER: What happens when the next health scare inadvertently occurs and all previous avenues have been exhausted? Little touches make the experience vivid, e.g. a classical orchestra rehearses showing how music provides punctuation to proceedings, and a policeman needing to be bribed to help her extract sums owed.
At times a world of dog-eat-dog, an old woman takes advantage of our heroine’s discombobulated state to steal her money and prescription, an arguable example of the meek being a target for the cowardly predatory; a no-nonsense lesson of strength begetting strength, or at least having to punch above your weight.
Village elders try to gather some money, showing how arbitrary aid is when not tied to a fair system.
A burgeoning bond with a charming town drunk and handyman, Tabu (Papi Mpaka), is an undercurrent that offers welcome respite, taking the edge off the damning spotlight.
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