There are 54 countries in Africa, and African Cinema has astonishing gifts to share. Queen of Katwe may be the most widely accessible film made and set in Africa with African actors in primary roles. Of course, Black Panther has its resonances too, but Queen of Katwe was made entirely in Uganda, with Ugandan, Nigerian, and Kenyan actors in the lead roles, directed by an Indian-American woman who lives in Uganda for part of each year. A film full of heart, but containing challenges to both patriarchy and colonialism, Queen of Katwe earns its emotional beats, surprises at several turns, and concludes with a lovely re-imagining of what an end credits sequence should look like.
CLICK HERE FOR THE TRAILER
CLICK HERE FOR GARETH’S INTRODUCTION
HOW TO WATCH QUEEN OF KATWE
Click here to watch on Amazon from $2.99, or paste the following link into your browser:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.ecaba314-9fe2-e0f0-f180-da296ec22f71?autoplay=1
Click here to watch on YouTube from $2.99, or paste the following link into your browser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SnZLp5Hfhs
Click here to watch on iTunes from $2.99, or paste the following link into your browser:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/queen-of-katwe/id1156290116
QUEEN OF KATWE is also available on Disney + in the US.
GARETH’S REFLECTIONS
The world is a wonder, and inexhaustibly so. Africa has been called the bread basket of the world, although much of the rest of the world has tried to exhaust it. Mira Nair honors Africa, wants to work with the truths of Africa in light and shadow. She opens her film Queen of Katwe with Madina Nalwanga’s Phiona Mutesi asking Am I ready?; to which David Oyelowo pronounces You belong here. These are words about Africa itself. Of course Africa should not need to ask for a place at the table; those who have held her in dependency need to undo the harm and make amends. What a marvelous surprise that a Disney family movie would strike such a blow for post-colonialism, gender equality, spirituality, community.
Actually, I should walk that back, because Nair and her screenwriter William Wheeler both know that an invitation is often better than a confrontation. Queen of Katwe is deceptive on the surface - a sports movie following the patterns of other sports movies (including Rocky’s lesson that the key thing is that it’s not about winning, but dignity). But Queen of Katwe avoids cliché at every turn - and tells a far more complex story than a simple rags-to-riches one.
Phiona is seen early in the film, tentatively entering the room where the chess players meet, the hand-held camera emphasizing how she feels interrupted, surrounded, that she doesn’t belong. We get a real feel for the landscape in which she lives - her ramshackle home, the market, the roads. We see the struggle and the vibrancy of her Ugandan life. But the movie doesn’t fetishize either the suffering or the color - it’s not a condescending vision of either poor Africans or happy ones. Just a truthful depiction of a life in community, people bearing with difficult circumstances, struggling and celebrating together. (Big laughter is a cultural characteristic, so of course it should be big in the movie!)
Mira Nair creates community on her sets, cooking for the crew, offering yoga. When in Uganda, she lives a few minutes away from the market in the film; and she knows the real life characters well. It shows - this is the kind of film I’d like to live in. It’s also a far more honest film than most in its treatment of extended family networks - many movies take place in a world in which one protagonist only ever meaningfully interacts with one other person. Nair’s films recognize that life is not like that - unless we’ve chosen the life of a hermit, most of us are usually embedded in life with far more than just a partner or nuclear family. The US American director John Sayles is probably most like Nair in that respect - his films often have a dozen or more memorable characters, with clear narrative arcs; and more realistic ones too, because they know that the beginnings and endings in our lives are rarely definitive.
Along with the joy of connection - to a sense of personal purpose and community overcoming oppression - Queen of Katwe embodies more social justice causes than I can number:
The challenge of financing dreams
The internal colonialism of the chess gatekeepers
The injustice that arises when healthcare is not guaranteed as a right
The way the garment seller so quickly moves to take advantage of Nakku Harriet (Lupita Nyong’o) when she needs to help her family.
The paradox, and sometimes the agony created when a dream cannot be sustained within the community of which you are a part. Of being from a place, but no longer of that place, which leaves some people feeling “Not here, not there - like ghosts who cannot rest.”
And then there is the answer to Phiona’s dilemma: interdependent community, which affirms her dreams and dignity, and in which everyone shares their needs and gifts for the sake of the common good. We are moved by Queen of Katwe not just because it’s a rip-roaring, vastly entertaining tale of people we instantly love, and who care for each other’s needs, but also because we know we want the same things for ourselves. Of course, we could benefit from dancing more often too.
POSTSCRIPT
If you like, perhaps let Queen of Katwe serve as a doorway to African cinema. It’s where human beings began; and there is a deep reservoir of wisdom, challenge, music, and courage in the cinema it has birthed.
FOR FURTHER VIEWING
African cinema is vast - and here are some of its greatest riches:
EGYPT: Cairo Station
GHANA: Beasts of No Nation
MALI: The Wind
SOUTH AFRICA: Tsotsi, Forgiveness, Sarafina!, A Dry White Season, and Long Night’s Journey Into Day
SENEGAL: Mooladé, Touki Bouki, and Sembene!
TUNISIA: The Silences of the Palace
ZAMBIA: I am not a Witch