If there is one thing the filmmaker in SAVING MBANGO does to capture the emotions as well as reason he seeks from viewers, it is the effective use of symbols. The image of an oil palm mill being turned depicts the Mondoni community. Palm oil production is one of the main occupations of the people along the coastal belt of Cameroon, especially villages that harbor the CDC and SOCAPLAM Agro-industrial outfits.
The filmmaker uses love scenes in the river as a way of relating the people’s attachment to water activities – a common phenomenon in coastal settlements. The same applies to the canoe, the main means of transportation there.
In the scenes where John interacts with his friends who attend university, the writer is using English to symbolize the western/formal educated class. When the former’s friends Epie (Raph), Joe (Esistern) and Onyama (Malvis), later divert to pidgin, it is the writer’s way of presenting a typical Cameroonian scenario, where lingua franca has its place even among school-going youths.
Beer-in-hand from scene one of the story, symbolizes a Cameroonian society that suffers with a negative reputation of habitual alcohol consumption, at times, in the name of drowning problems.
The storm that precedes the rain is a signal of further struggles that await John as the story rides on.
Throughout the story, the filmmaker presents his lead character with an abnormally tainted eye pupil, certainly to signify witchcraft which she is suspected of having.
Perhaps, the symbol that stands out in SAVING MBANGO would be the lead character’s shaved head, a depiction of the viewer would recognize in the middle of the story. Until, the movie is watched in its entirety, that symbol, effectively used in the process, would not be understood.
SAVING MBANGO is a manifest of modern-day film directing. Unlike in the long-time past African movies, scenes in the movie are snappy and only roll longer when they are absolutely called for. When the filmmaker uses long range shots for most of his family gathering scenes, it is intended to arouse the feeling of togetherness, even amid disputes. His close-up and extreme close-up shots are carefully chosen and used mostly in Mbango and John professing scenes, to buttress the expression of love between the two.
However, the award-winning shot is the exterior wide/long range, chosen for the hospital premises scene, where Mbango declares her intention to resign but is objected. The filmmaker deliberately shots the characters from a hind position as a way of conveying a message of the unknown. The shot becomes even more distant as John walks away in desperation (though still determined), introducing an environment of suspense on the viewer’s mind. He succeeds a hundred percent in igniting such feelings.
Shot on High Definition (HD), SAVING MBANGO is served as a bowl of impeccable screen images. Even when cinematic lighting is adequate, most of the scenes of the film are exterior, thus, natural lighting.
The movie’s sound on its part, is void of hiccups.
In SAVING MBANGO, Nkanya Nkwai succeeds in telling a story in the easiest way possible to be understood. His cast, the location and meticulous manufacture of cinematic images that knit the story’s plots, result in an amazing piece of work whose consumer could be caught watching again and again. Brilliantly shaping the victory of love though his characters and accompanying film making techniques, is a successful advert of the triumph of virtue over vice – timeless law of nature.
However, it only by watchingSAVING MBANGOto its end, that you would waste no second in signing Lynno Lovert (writer) and Nkanya Nkwai (director) as trusted storytellers.
Technical Sheet
Movie title: “Saving Mbango”
Length: 110 minutes
Type: Feature film
Location: Mondoni
Story/Screenplay: Lynno Lovert
Editor: Achille Brice
Director: Nkanya Nkwai
Producer: Stephanie Tum
Executive Producers: Stephanie Tum, Julia L. Gham
Production Outfits: Embi Productions & The Powerhouse
Ernest Kanjo is a USA-based Journalist and Writer with an interest in arts, culture and entertainment reporting. Founder of Apex 1 Radio –www.apex1radio.comand Editor-in-Chief of TIPTOPSTARS (online entertainment magazine) – www.tiptopstars.com, he has written extensively on the Cameroonian film industry. He is a currently a film criticism trainee. Kanjo has several awards from his works in film reporting.
