(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In a single night vision selfie, we get introduced to the film's protagonists, Kenyan farmer Kisilu Musya, his wife Christina Wayua Kisilu and their nine children, Naomi, Serah, Esther, Isaac, Mercy, Grace, Juliet, Kaki and Eunice. The film's theme is climate change, and by gradually shedding more light on this family portrait, the film makes us see that there are actually real people in the world who experience that climate change is not just big words and loud rhetoric, but a harsh reality they face on a daily basis. . And that they have no choice but to accept them.
Wait. This is made clear in an informative and extremely cinematic way, in recordings that vary from landscape and sky to detail in human faces. In the beginning, the protagonists in the film wait for the rain, "the mother of all living things in the world," as Christina says slowly, with a soft, wise and timeless voice. As the rain does not come, the earth becomes more and more dry and so does the family's mouths. Kisilu comes home from town, and in a breathtaking scene without words, he almost conceals his wife's purchases. But the quantities are so small that they immediately disappear into her lap. "Now you see that you can't get both money and corn," she laughs, and he laughs cheerfully with her. "You can't cook the money and feed the kids with them, can you?"
In uniforms so colorful that the children resemble butterflies, they are sent home from school because they have not paid the school fees. When the drought persists and other fathers seek work from home, Kisilu reflects on what it means to be a father and decides to stay. But when he tries to borrow some money to buy a motorcycle and offer taxi services in the neighborhood, he is rejected by the bank.
Flood. Then, finally, comes the rain. But the relief is only temporary. After the first heavy drops, the storm becomes so violent that it tears the roof off the house. "My books and documents!" Is Kisilu's first concern. In the distance, the camera follows the family where it slowly lets its eyes glide over its broken things that are scattered around, soaked and covered in dirt.
Later in the film, when Kisilu visits director Julia Dahr in Norway, she mentions that she feels uncomfortable about how different her living conditions are from his. But this is already evident in the footage made after the storm. There is rarely so much sensitivity to other people conveyed through a camera lens. Finally, things are going well, and the neighbors are helping to add a new roof. However, the house was not the only thing damaged. The drought was followed by flooding, and the corn plants and papaya trees, all carefully planted in the dry season, are now under water or have been torn off by the flood.
Previously, Kisilu attended a course in cultivation methods. That's when he got hold of the film camera he uses to document his daily activities. He also learned about the dangers of climate change and possible countermeasures, especially about planting trees as a way to counter climate change. To begin with, the other farmers showed little interest. But the extreme weather conditions made them more aware of the common enemy, and also more willing to learn from Kisilu and join the groups he organized to teach them how to plant trees. In return, they taught him that activism does not provide food. On the contrary, it requires great sacrifices. First and foremost by his wife Christina, who in full accord with the wise wife role she is given in this film, defines strong commitment as "a sacrifice from the willing." It's a moving statement that is meant to justify the fact that she (along with the kids) was the one left to work on the farm, while her husband was busy running from one group meeting to the other to explain where important it is to plant trees.
Activism. Towards the end of the film, we understand that Kisilu, with the help of her friends from the global north, is continuing her work. His activism reached its peak when he was invited to speak at the UN Climate Conference in Paris in 2015. Considering the modest film production in the global South, Kisilus many European visits are needed to balance the totalizing way of view of the global North. They bring to mind the controversial visual ethnography practiced by the legendary Jean Rouch. He was probably the first to turn the ethnographer's camera the other way in the celebrated and ironic Little to little (1970), a film about a group of Nigerian friends who visit Paris and use ethnographic techniques to measure people in the streets of the metropolis.
There is no irony in that Thank You for the Rainbut it is ironic that people from the global South to this day are the object of the gaze and not its subject. As Julia Dahr frankly noted in connection with Kisilu's presence at the Paris Climate Conference: "You are here to be seen, not to be heard, I am afraid." Thus, this visit, as important as it is in Kisilu's personal life, shows that in the decades following Rouch's experiment in juxtaposing north and south, a whole set of new inequalities have been developed. And global warming has made these inequalities more extensive than ever.
The agreement reached in Paris will not prevent irreversible damage to the planet. The really alarming fact is that Kisilu and the other farmers at his home already experience this on his body, in his own life. The least I can do here is to use Kisilu's words as a conclusion: "If I had my own world and power, I could have selected some leaders and let them come here and starve, so that they could understand what it means to have a society starving. But since I have no power, let them continue to enjoy at the expense of others.
The film will be shown at Human IDFF in Oslo from 7 to 13 March
