Kumekucha, USAID, Feed The Future, Africa Lead present, Ibrahim Osward (Mashoto), Monica Sizya (Lightness), Jacob Steven (Kidevu), Martin White (Nunda), Akashi Mtenda (Vuli), Amir Abdallah (Shaba), Beatrice Taisamo (Fatuma). Director, Jordan Riber; Producers, John Riber, Louise Riber, Jordan Riber; Associate Producer, Louise Kamin; Screenplay, Andrew Whaley, Jordan Riber; Director of Photography, Talib Ramussen (DFF).
Of all names in the world, why could a writer name a lead character in a screenplay, “Lightness?” Is this coincidence, or is the writer beckoning to us, Milan Kundera’s treatise The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), based on a metaphysical philosophy of Frederick Nietzsche? If it is so, so otherworldly, then I’d hold my break right here. It is a no-go there for me. Instead, I will scratch the outer pigment of The Gift and leave the underbelly to the students of philosophy. As I said, I am not educated and have never written a paper in philosophical thoughts. I’ve no discipline in theories and philosophies the old Greeks talked and taught. I never marched in halls, in a gown at graduation, throw a cape in the air, and howler, Hallelujah! I’m an uncultivated fellow raised to himself and by himself on books. No, no, no. Please don’t pity me; I’m just an old nerd.
The Gift is something else: A heavy lifting gets me turned off and out. But I’m going to wrestle with it, even it takes me only to scratch the outer pigment. And I am going to take it morsel by morsel before it chokes me. The young city rat Mashoto (Ibrahim Osward), working as a passenger-car loader, gets news of his mother passing away in his village. He travels to his birth village of Lunyanja for the funeral. Mashoto misses his mother very much, but he hates leaving the city simultaneously. And now that he’s in the town, Mashoto’s father harasses him to stay and cultivate the land, mother left. All turns into inner turmoil that’s ravaging his soul.
Upon his arrival in the village, a tyrant everyone is afraid of named Nunda (Martin White) challenges him to a duel. He beats Mashoto the first time, but Mashoto bloodies his mouth and falls outside the circle upon a second challenge. Mashoto wins this time. Nunda is the constant humbug to the peaceful existence of Mashoto in Lunyanja. He wants Mashoto to go away. But Mashoto has already seen Lightness (Monica Sizya) and expresses his likeness and love for her. They talked, but Lightness seems, like always between youthful men and women, more mature than Mashoto; she wants them to slow things down. She already has a boy, Davido, from an unknown man. She is not looking for a fly-by-night romance.
Mashoto is impatient. He doesn’t believe farming is his calling. He hardly knows what he wants; then, he boards the bus back to the city and happily works his bus-passenger-loading job. Then, he gets a phone call from Lightness; Nunda and his gang have attacked her and Vuli (Akashi Mtenda). Mashoto commandeers his friend Shaba to go to Lunyanja. On their way, Mashoto to Shaba: “We don’t have to live in the city, okay? There’s a better place with hills, rivers, valleys, and fertile lands. The harvest is plenty if you work hard. We’re still young. We can bid goodbye to all these snarl-ups.” Mashoto and his gang save Lightness and Vuli and get to love, kiss, and…
Riber is hammering into our conscience two ideas in his works: the cooperative effort of African women to improve their lots and form the economic backbone of African families. In Fatuma, the women folks stand to Kidevu, the village crop buyer, who takes away all that Fatuma had reaped from the farm. The reason, Fatuma’s husband had taken an advance loan of the farm his wife exclusively tilled without his help. You can see the jubilation and dancing when they force Kedevu to return all he takes from Fatuma.
In The Gift, the cache of savings Fatuma brings to Mashoto after his mother’s funeral is his mother’s share of the proceeds from the women’s cooperative savings and loans. Masato’s father has never been part of his wife’s farming. “You always showed up during harvest.” Mashoto to his father as both sit by the grave. Interestingly, African women can organize themselves into savings and loan clubs in their villages to benefit their lots. Here, Mashoto receives his mother’s lifetime savings.
Riber has always portrayed the husbands as lazy and drunkards who aren’t helpful to their wives’ farming. In Fatuma, the husband goes around local brewed liquor bars, gets drunk, gets beat up, and spends his wife’s hard-earned money from the farm to pay for a younger girlfriend to go to school, and gets beat up by a younger boyfriend of the girl. Then too, Riber makes an expose of Kidevu and his business practices. In The Gift, Mashoto’s father never helped his mother till the land but always showed up at harvest times.
Mashoto falls out with his father. He finds a job with Kedevu (Jacob Steven) Lunyanja produce buyer to get the fare back to the city. The writer tries to look into the politics and corrupt practices of Kidevu and his gang of workers. They are more interested in the women’s hard-earned harvest. Kedevu hates the presence of Vuli in the village. Vuli’s approach to doing business with the community is more liberal and honest than Kidevu and therefore wants him dead. Kidevu pays Mashoto’s fare to leave the village because he sees him as a threat, “You pass for someone capable of making a fortune. That’s what I see in you. You are different.”
Jordan Riber has written Fatuma, The Envelope, and now The Gift. The most complaints you hear in Africa today are the youths have abandoned the farms and run to the cities. He is doing an excellent job in The Gift at pulling Moshato from the town back to the village. Besides philosophically speaking, he literarily connects Lightness and Mashoto. Mashoto feels, “My heart is hurt, my soul seeks for solace. I don’t know how I will escape the wrath. How I will escape the inner pain and loneliness is slowly devouring me. Everyone else wishes death on me. [Sic] Please take me away from the world. I’m fed up.” That is the suicidal state of mind of Mashoto before running into Lightness and falling for her.
The Gift has a philosophical underbelly with which I could toy. What with Mashoto lying face down in the dust after Nunda beats him in the duel. He raised his face from the ground and locked sight with Lightness in the crowd; whispered Mashoto’s name three times, then, she walked away. There is a spiritual interpretation here as Mashoto gets up from the ground with renewed energy, wager another fight with Nunda, and beats him. I must interpret The Gift as thus that the presence of Lightness gives strength to Moshoto’s “unbearable being.” The next scene is Mashoto following the ghostly image of Lightness to the brooks: “Follow me to the garden; let’s share the harvest as the light and sound calm us together.”
At last, Mashoto and Lightness get together; Mashoto says to her.:
“I came back for you.”
“There’s another reason.”
“what could that be?”
“The land and everything.”
“Our stories never part. It’s like a vine looking for the sun. I’ve seen the light, I’m home, from where I came. I’m born of this soil.”
Riber hides the essence of the title in this film in the relationship between Lightness and Mashoto. I strongly feel The Gift is the land Mashoto’s mother left him. Better yet, Lightness brings The Gift of her person to the unbearable being of Mashoto, who had earlier contemplated suicide:
“I dip my feet in the mud. I get hold of my roots, spread my arms, and bask in the sun and the wind. I feel eagerness taking over me. I can breathe. I have the strength inside of me to bring basic changes. I never felt like this before.”
Lightness, “Me too.”