By Rowena Aquino
Munyurangabo has been making quiet, but very palpable strides in the festival circuit beginning in 2007. In response, critics and audiences have been vocal in their overall praise for Lee and his film's representation of the Rwandan genocide, and its ongoing resonance in contemporary Rwandan lives. Despite the doubtful conditions of its debut screening at the Cannes Film Festival -- Lee submitted it on the day of the deadline for consideration, not really thinking it would be selected -- Munyurangabo went on to win the International Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Los Angeles Film Festival later that year.
Lee attended the City of the Angels screening, along with his wife Valerie Chu. Chu, an art therapist, was inarguably instrumental in the making of Munyurangabo. Her volunteer work in Rwanda, with youth and genocide survivors, prompted Lee to come to Rwanda as well. Munyurangabo emerged from Lee's film workshops with Rwandan youths, some of whom ended up working on the film both in front of and behind the camera. After the screening, I spoke with Chu and Lee about the film. During the course of our conversation, larger issues such as Rwandan culture and history came up. Equally significant though were questions of cinema and... Abbas Kiarostami.
On the film's production, its makers and its reception:
Asia Pacific Arts: After making this film, the first narrative feature film in the native Rwandan language [Kinyarwanda], have the pressures of being "representative" of Rwanda shifted, now that Rwandan filmmakers are emerging -- through the film workshops that you're creating with your company.
Lee Isaac Chung: Yes... it's a constant tension, to have made this film and somehow be championing the idea of making a film in which a certain unrepresented group voice themselves, [but] to do it through me. It's definitely not ideal. For what it's worth, I don't know if it's completely pure. The logical step was to have them make movies, which they're starting to do now. So just in having done that, I feel that's been more valuable in the original goal of having an unrepresented group have a film that's expressing their voice. I guess that leaves me with the idea that this film has different goals and different meanings. So yeah, definitely, the goal of having them make their own films needs to come from them.
APA: I read recently that the Edouard [B. Uwayo, the poet in Munyurangabo] has recently completed a film of his own. Is that right?
LIC: Yeah, he made a feature film. Then he won a grant from Focus Features to make another film, which is really cool. They flew him out to New York and gave him his prize, $10,000. He's incredible.
APA: It's one of the most moving portions of your film. It almost explodes beyond the frame; he's just talking to you in direct address, summing up this cultural history of Rwanda that's not really known outside the context of the genocide. That was a really great moment.
LIC: When I envisioned that scene, it was just the idea of revolting against the way that Hollywood has approached making films in Rwanda, or in Africa in general: you don't let them speak and you don't show the people there. You take African Americans over there, or you find British actors who can fake an accent. That, to me, seemed outrageous. When I knew I was going to do this poem, I thought, OK, we should do it so that you're forced to watch it, and you're forced to listen to it. And I thought a long take would be the best way.
APA: How did you know that you were going to put [the poem] at that moment, right before Ngabo arrives at the house? Were you trying to figure out from the very beginning where you were going to place him?
LIC: I had no idea for the longest time. I think it was after shooting a few days. We shot it in order, so you kind of write out what's going on, and you figure out what to do next. After we'd done a quarter of the film, it just started to seem that Ngabo should encounter him after he leaves the town. That should be the first encounter with a person.
APA: Aside from Edouard's direct address, I noticed some shots where you introduce the two boys, and they're facing the camera. There are other moments where they're not in dialogue, but you have them look into [the camera]; it's like Ozu's shots of dialogue, where it's very frontal. Did you already have that in mind going into it?
LIC: It's interesting 'cause... [laughs] I feel like a lot of these filmmakers like Ozu -- who I love -- and Kiarostami and stuff, and I've talked to somebody who worked with Edward Yang who kind of verifies this, that there's a certain type of cinema you have to make simply 'cause you don't have the means to do anything else, and that's the long-take cinema. You can't cut it; if you're working with non-professionals then you have to just let them do it once, and there's no way you can cut and have them repeat it so you can get a better angle. What those filmmakers have done with that is use it for the benefit of what they're making. I mean, we were in the same situation. There was no other way to film...
APA: It was really low-budget?
LIC: [laughs] Yeah, really low-budget. We filmed it in 11 days, so there was no way to do takes over and over again.
APA: What translates is a very assured direction. Being a feature debut, it was very impressive.
LIC: Thank you. [Laughs] You have to thank the limitations, not the direction.
APA: Was there a creative role that emerged with the translator, was there input given, or was it just him or her translating exactly what you wanted?
LIC: Emmanuel [Ahishakiye] was the main translator, and I would say that he definitely had a very big role, in just telling me what he thinks, telling me if it's realistic or telling me that's a great take. He would tell me.
APA: So there were multiple directors actually on this film?
LIC: Yeah, yeah, and I'm fine with that. He did just a wonderful job. And he ended up working with... I don't know if you know Paul Farmer, Partners in Health. They do a lot of health work in developing world communities where they try to offer the best health care possible to the poorest communities. So he started being a translator for them. He's just a brilliant interpreter. He speaks French, English and Kinyarwanda.
APA: Did you leave a lot of room for improvisation throughout the whole shooting?
LIC: Yeah, I would just say, "Look, in this scene, to move this story along, this is what we need. Basically, let's do a scene where the emotional content is about this." For instance, the mother and Sangwa talking about "Who's this friend of yours," introducing this tension between the mother [and Sangwa] or the relationship between the two boys [Sangwa and Ngabo]. I'd tell them, "That's what we need," and they would do this scene without me filming for about ten minutes. Then I'd stop them and ask that to be translated to me. Then I'd tell them, "Let's cut this, this and this out," and try it. Then that would be translated back to them, and they'd do it. Maybe after about three rehearsals they would do the scene. It's mostly a lot of long scenes that we just cut out different elements.
APA: Was there a lot of footage cut out?
LIC: We shot at maybe a 4:1 ratio. In the end, no. But there's a whole back story of what happens in Kigali that's on film that never made it into the movie.
APA: What made you decide that the third boy should be written out?
LIC: It became pretty clear that the story belongs to these two [Sangwa and Ngabo]. We always joke about making a film about this third character, a short film. His name is Dudu. I don't think it'll ever come to be. It was just the flow of the narrative.
APA: Has the film screened elsewhere in Africa, outside of Rwanda?
LIC: I think it screened at Durban [in South Africa], the festival.
APA: How has the overall reception been?
LIC: I met a filmmaker, or film festival director, from this island near Madagascar. He just screened the film and I had no idea. He really liked it. I've had interesting conversations with African film communities who seem to like the movie.
Valerie Chu: There are other Rwandans overseas who have seen the film, like in Toronto and different festivals. The response has generally been positive. For a lot of them, they haven't been home in years and to see that represented on the screen is very special. To them it is very Rwandan in flavor.
APA: The pacing, it's so important…
LIC: There's a very intentional storytelling that's in the culture that we tried to do, where people speak, tell stories.
APA: I was going to ask you about some of Gwiza's [Jean Pierre "Mulonda" Harerimana] dialogue, he tells these comical stories.
LIC: The chicken with tight pants…
APA: ...or looking for a bride. That's very inherently within the culture, or was he just making that up?
Isaac: [jokes] Those are Valerie's jokes
Valerie: I just thought I'd be funny. [laughs] No, he made them up on the spot. But they're very typical of the kind of story they tell.
LIC: People always say he's the funniest guy they've ever met, people who are friends with him. So when we cast him, we just said "OK, just tell a funny story." And he did it, and everyone died laughing.
Valerie: To us, it's a little bit weird, and to most Western audiences, but when the Rwandans watch it, they just love it.
LIC: Yeah, they laughed a lot. The translator, when he was telling me this story, he couldn't stop laughing: And then there was a goat, a chicken with a goat leg. Definitely their humour.
APA: On the flipside of that, did you encounter any resistance from your actors or crew about doing certain scenes that were confrontational, or that maybe hit too close to home? Or was that the point of incorporating, from the beginning, their own personal experiences and memories?
LIC: There's nothing in the film that they didn't want. Originally there were things that I might have written where they said "That's too much." For instance, I was going to film a scene where the father says very racist things about Ngabo, and it was going to be very bad. But for them, just for him to say "Where is that Tutsi?" is very taboo and very racist. But for him to do more than that would be an exaggeration. I guess when we watch it and he says "Where is that Tutsi?" it doesn't mean much, but for them it's a big deal.
APA: You start the film with a machete, which is very charged. It's become the symbol of the genocide. It carries a suspenseful moment throughout the film. I heard some gasps every time the machete came out; it almost became a suspenseful film, which is kind of weird.
LIC: There we were very careful when we went back to the base where we were staying. When we'd take the machete out you have to wrap it up, so... If you're just walking around with it… I mean, people still work with them.
Valerie: Yeah, it's an everyday tool at the same time. Like they chop grass or whatever, and people waving them around.
APA: Back to the film workshops that you started in 2006, are they still going on?
LIC: Yeah, the last one was last year in July. In September, I started a business with the students. I'm trying to do a micro-enterprise with them. Now they're making films and doing wedding videos and stuff like that. I decided to try to make it more of a self-sustaining thing. This year we're not going to go back. But next year I'll probably go back and do more, teaching sound. Originally I tried to make this bigger and make a school. I ended up deciding just to focus with the original group who worked on Munyurangabo and just continue training them, until they are completely independent. It's still a process, we're still working. Edouard's one of the students.
APA: With the students that you've taught, worked with and have met, how would you describe the role of film and images in terms of re-making their identities?
LIC: Through their own work?
APA: Right. And through your own work with them, through Munyurangabo. Has it been an all-out positive response to using the camera to express themselves?
LIC: Oh yeah, they're running with it. They don't always agree with the types of film I want them to appreciate [laughs], but...
Valerie: They want to make films and tell their stories through film, for sure.
LIC: They all have their own personalities of what they want to do, so that's nice.
Valerie: And their own stories still do revolve around the genocide. It's something that they also still need to work through.
APA: Did you do preliminary interviewing in Rwanda, from family to family or individual to individual, gathering stories to make the dialogue?
LIC: For the two main actors [Jeff Rutagengwa as Ngabo and Eric Ndorunkundiye as Sangwa], I definitely interviewed them a lot. And then, the other actors I don't think I interviewed any of them. But I would interview crew and other people in Rwanda and then incorporate their stories.
Valerie: We were there for nine weeks, and the first four weeks were all just preparation, talking to people.
APA: Did you find that for the most part they were quite open in sharing their experiences?
LIC: When you tell them especially, "We're making a movie…" They're wonderful there.
Looking beyond and before Munyurangabo:
APA: You made short films prior to Munyurangabo.
LIC: I made a film in Spanish.
Valerie: And you didn't really speak Spanish (laughs).
LIC: I made a film in Chinese. And I'm not Chinese.
APA: Do you hope to make other films along those lines?
LIC: I guess not. I guess Lucky Life is now the first English film.
APA: Has it been completed?
LIC: Yeah. I loved making it. The ability to -- the nuances of the English language... that I'm butchering right now (laughs). Yeah, it's something I'd like to continue to do.
APA: Will that be screening sometime soon?
LIC: We're trying to get into festivals right now.
APA: Can you tell me a little bit more how you decided to drop biology and go into filmmaking [in Yale]? Was there a specific moment, specific filmmaker or set of films?
LIC: I guess I always say it kind of started with watching Wong Kar-wai for the first time. I'd watched a lot of Hollywood films, and I started watching his stuff and that led me to watching some French new wave cinema. For some reason after that it was Terrence Malick. Just that progression made me feel like, "This is such a powerful thing, and this is something I want to do."
And around that time I took a class to fulfill an arts requirement. I decided I'm going to do and see if I enjoy it. If I do, then maybe I'll go ahead and continue doing film. And I really loved it. It wasn't your traditional tell-a-narrative production class, it was "Go out, get ten images of motion," something like that. It was much more about the actual image itself, which I thought was a great way to learn how to make films ‘cause you just focus on the image, movement and things like that.
APA: [Among] some of the filmmakers you were watching while making or prior to making Munyurangabo, Kiarostami keeps on coming up. I thought a lot about The Wind Will Carry Us while watching your film.
LIC: That was a big influence. It's my favorite of his. This is something you gather from the interviews that he gives. The films are usually about him taking in what the people actually want to say, so his direction is he asks questions and then they answer him. And I feel that's a beautiful way to describe what cinema should be. They basically just speak what they feel, what is their truth, and he captures it on celluloid, and that's amazing.