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For better and almost certainly worse, most of our images of African children, particularly those who are poor or ravaged by disease, come from organizations hoping to coax (manipulate) us into donating money. The tearful visage of Sally Struthers or the disturbing shot of a bloated child covered in flies are what spring to mind, and it's uncomfortably easy to generalize about an entire continent. Which is why director Abbas Kiarostami's ABC Africa is such an important documentary. It too focuses on African children, poor and often orphaned, and yet it bursts with hope and vibrant life. It reminds us that Africa's children are just like our own. And without being didactic, it provides a much more compelling case for our involvement in Africa--our deeply shared humanity.

The movie opens with a fax. Kiarostami is invited by the International Fund for Agricultural Development to fly to Uganda. There, he will make a movie about UWESO, a local organization that empowers women to care for orphans of the AIDS crisis. Soon, Kiarostami and his assistant Seifollah Samadian are driving down a Ugandan road, with hand-held digital video cameras shooting all the way.

The decision to film in digital video is a significant one. What the medium loses in crisp, beautiful cinematography, it gains in immediacy and an ability to interact with its subjects. When Kiarostami or Samadian plunge into a throng of children, a common occurrence in the movie, the camera goes with them--filming the children as they dance, as they sing, as they laugh, as they surround the filmmakers. The dynamic becomes much more interactive than would happen with big, unwieldy film cameras and their
necessary crew. The children can literally see what's being filmed, can even help shape what Kiarostami is shooting. And unlike Homework, another Kiarostami documentary about children, the digital camera is much less imposing and threatening. The young ones don't cower in fear but instead perform for the camera with beaming smiles a mile wide.

The movie isn't just about children, though. It also focuses on the women who are involved in the organization. We sit in their meetings as they learn how to care for orphaned children and are encouraged to set aside a few shillings every week, to save for that inevitable rainy day. We also visit an AIDS center, the one moment in the film that reverts to expectations. The roving camera settles briefly on each patient, many
heart-breakingly young, and then quickly moves on to the next. The scene ends with the workers wrapping a small body in preparation for a funeral. Yet, Kiarostami refuses to dwell on these overwhelming images; the next moment features a choir of children, all dressed in vivid yellow, singing and then dancing. The event has clearly been staged (one shot is of Kiarostami holding his hands in the air, which quickly leads the children to follow suit), but the smiles and laughter are completely genuine.

My favorite scene, and maybe the most powerful in the movie, happens early one morning. Across the street from Kiarostami's hotel is a dilapidated house. Years of civil war have blown out the windows and doors. A steady rain is falling, and the house's floor is covered with water. But inside, a woman, whose first husband was killed by AIDS, is getting ready for her wedding. Sitting quietly in a chair, dressed in white, she waits patiently as a friend prepares her hair for the big event. Nearby, three little children dance and jump in the puddles on the floor, not quite aware that Kiarostami is filming. In the next room, a woman uses rags and clothes to soak up the water and then puts the rags out on a line to dry, all in the middle of a rainstorm.

It is a perfect metaphor. Though the rain will continue to soak the floor, though dryness is an impossible state, the Ugandans can't just give up and let it be. And meanwhile, life in all its splendor and all its simplicity
goes on. Men and women get married, little kids play, everyone sings. Yes, many people will die well before their time; but that's not cause for despair, it's all the more reason to sing and dance and laugh, and to do what you can for those who still live.

It is wonderfully appropriate that ABC Africa is opening here in Chicago while the World Cup is going on. Some cynical commentators have remarked that the soccer extravaganza functions as an enormous circus, diverting the poor of the world from the more important tasks of political uprising and protest. And yet ABC Africa reminds us that without the joys of life--the pleasures of communal entertainment, of shared happiness in a game or a song--a perfect political system is worthless. And even in the midst of disease and starvation, you can still sing with your neighbor or with the man who's come from thousands of miles away. It's not that reform and helping your neighbor aren't incredibly important (one scene of a little boy trying to carry a bundle of sticks when no one will help him is deeply affecting), but let us not forget why we do those things.

In And Life Goes On, one of Kiarostami's earlier movies, the main character went searching for a friend after a devastating earthquake in his native Iran. The scenes of destruction were almost overwhelming, and people sat around in a state of shock. Yet, he stumbled on one gathering that was wildly different. Hundreds of people were in the middle of a field, away from any buildings for fear of aftershocks. Yet, there was happiness and excitement in the air. People had come from miles away to watch a television using a makeshift satellite that a few boys had rigged up. Everyone had gathered to watch the World Cup.  

J. Robert Parks 6/18/2002