DVD Review: Arresting African Noir ‘Viva Riva!’ Delivers Plentiful Thrills

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CHICAGO – At this year’s MTV Movie Awards, Djo Tunda Wa Munga’s “Viva Riva!” had the distinction of winning the first ever “Best African Movie” award, thus equating it with such cinematic masterworks as “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” Luckily, that’s not the only claim to fame for Munga’s slick neo-noir, which also garnered six African Academy Awards and single-handedly revitalized the film industry in Congo.

It was clearly the director’s intention to make a picture most likely to have international appeal, and in that regard, he has succeeded admirably. Though the film has garnered comparisons to Fernando Meirelles’s masterwork “City of God,” “Riva” is more interested in establishing a rich style and atmosphere than exploring compelling characters. Munga’s background in documentaries brings an immediacy and detail to each sequence, though the people populating the foreground never rise beyond the level of genre archetypes.

DVD Rating: 3.5/5.0

Charismatic newcomer Patsha Bay is Riva, a smooth operator with a perpetual smile that rarely ever fades from his face, even when doom appears imminent. He returns to his old stomping ground of Kinshasa with a truck carrying barrels of stolen fuel. Riva hopes to make a big profit by selling the barrels to the petrol-starved city, though his Angolan nemesis, César (Hoji Fortuna), is hot on his trail. Looking like a cross between Spike Lee and a ’70s-era pimp, Fortuna exudes so much cartoonish malice that he looks as if he were ripped straight out of a noirish looney tune. Though there is some deadpan comedy early on, as César and his cronies bumble around like hopeless fish out of water, it’s not long before they set off geysers of savage violence that threaten to engulf the cocky protagonist. Yet Riva is already busy making a host of new enemies when he falls in lust—er, love with club girl Nora (Manie Malone), the companion of cold-blooded gangster Azor (Diplome Amekindra). While all these characters follow more or less predictable paths, a cloud of intrigue swirls around a Congolese commander (superbly played by Marlene Longange) blackmailed into helping the Angolan thugs under the threat that her sister will be harmed. She’s the most interesting person in the film because it’s unclear whose side she’ll settle with right up until the final frame.

Patsha Bay stars in Djo Tunda Wa Munga’s Viva Riva!.
Photo credit: Music Box Films

Munga presents viewers with a host of memorable images, particularly the shot of a femme fatale applying blood red lipstick while a man gets pummeled in the next room. There’s a couple scenes that are genuinely erotic, even as they stretch the laws of credibility, particularly when Riva and Nora make wildly acrobatic love through a window. What’s unexpected is the dramatic impact of the violence. No death is treated with tongue-in-cheek flippancy, regardless of whether the character is a sympathetic victim or a wretched punk. Munga lingers on the brutality just long enough for viewers to register the sense of loss and the price of unmitigated greed. His direction is so effective that it renders his self-consciously prophetic dialogue even more pointless. “Money is like poison,” Nora warns, “In the end, it always kills you.” This picture may be little more than a glorified B-movie, but it emerges as an increasingly impressive achievement the more one learns about its fresh-faced filmmaker and cast. Munga had hoped to reach the mainstream with this film, and there’s certainly nothing more mainstream than MTV.
 

Viva Riva! was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on Sept. 27, 2011. Photo credit: Music Box Films

“Viva Riva!” is presented in its 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and the impeccable picture quality does full justice to the gritty beauty in Antoine Roch’s cinematography. What’s lacking in the DVD’s paltry extras is any explanation of this film’s important role in the history of African cinema. An overview of the Congo film industry, its stagnancy under the regime of Mobutu Sese Seku and the enormous gap between “Riva” and Congo’s last feature (1987’s “La Vie Est Belle”), would’ve been a welcome addition to this disc. Instead, the only behind-the-scenes featurette is an 8-minute interview with Munga, who reveals that it was his intention to utilize reliable genre tropes to kick-start his industry. He set out to capture a realistic portrait of Kinshasa by accurately mixing the languages of Lingala and French while not shying away from the town’s luridness and corruption, though he considers its open displays of prostitution as a mere “straightforward expression of sexuality.” 
 
Yet the real jewel here is Munga’s 53-minute fact-based film, “Papy,” which in its own low-key way is even more potent than “Riva,” mainly because the character’s emotions are felt on a raw level without the distancing framework of a genre homage. This 2009 effort could’ve easily been a routine disease of the week melodrama, but Munga makes the excruciatingly painful subject matter resonate on a very real level. Nzita Tumba, who memorably played Mother Edo in “Riva,” is prominently featured in the ensemble of this drama, which centers on an ailing man, Papy (Romain Ndomba), who discovers that he’s HIV positive. It’s suggested that sexual temptations led him to commit the most personal of betrayals against his wife (Chaida Chady Suku Suku), who’s now stricken with the disease. The film never adequately deals with this shameful aspect of Papy’s character, though the couple’s crumbling relationship is powerfully portrayed by both actors. As difficult as the film is to watch at times, its message is resoundingly hopeful, urging those infected with HIV to seek out the antibodies that will help them live a normal life. As impressive as “Riva” is in both scope and structure, “Papy” is the film that truly solidifies Munga’s status as a filmmaker to watch.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com