The Revealed Truth Part 8: The Resurrection

The ascension scene returns The Revealed Truth back to the AIDS ravaged fishing village from Part 1. After wading out of Lake Victoria, I remarked to the play's producer that the footage from the play's performance of the resurrection scene didn't come out too well. We decided to reshoot the scene in the bush down the beach from the village. The actor who plays Jesus, Pr. Josham Ssewanja, kept climbing up this hill. The cast and crew had no idea what he was doing. It was all done out of improvisation. In fact you can see one of the disciples trying to persuade him to get back down. However, we got the shot and I think it turned out well.

As Ssewanja gets to the top of the mountain he raises his arms out and looks down, creating the same iconic pose as the O Cristo Redentor statue of Rio De Janeiro. Christ the Redeemer is considered to be the largest art deco statue on earth. It is 130 feet tall, weighs 700 tons, and has been voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

I don't think that the Ugandan cast and crew were aware of the giant statue in Brazil, but there is a correlation with The Revealed Truth. Christ the Redeemer sits atop Corcavodo hill looking down into the favelas below. These slums are riddled with drugs and gangs and considered to be some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the world. Both the Christ in Rio and the Messiah in The Revealed Truth are redeemers, not of sin, but of poverty.

From my experience in making this film, I've learned that Uganda has more than its fair share of destitution. Domestic violence, corruption, disease, vigilante law, and malnutrition make day to day life difficult. In an environment like that, one can only have hope that things will one day change.  Christ's transcendent qualities are often the only thing that keeps people going.  Organized religion is the backbone of the community.

Closely linked to the church are the faith based charities that sponsor children.
It's one way of creating redemption in rural villages, but is it beneficial for the community? Selected kids attend boarding schools in towns outside the village.  When they go to University it's hours away in the capital.  Those fortunate enough to pursue higher education become professionals in their careers. Yet, they are often reluctant to return to their homes after finding a better life elsewhere.  That's redemption for the individual, but creates brain drain on the country. The best and brightest Ugandans don't even live in Uganda.

 Foreign intervention by itself is not a viable solution. It fosters a culture of dependency that keeps things at status quo and often creates an environment vulnerable to corruption.  Today Africa must struggle with an ill-fitting Western paradigm of development. It's structured in a way that the region will be forever playing catch up to the rest of the world.  The continent's redemption must come from within. Africa is a wealth of natural resources and culture.  Those who were fortunate enough to get out of Africa in search of better education and jobs must make the Christ-like sacrifice to return to their former life of poverty so that they can lead their people out.   Africa needs to develop itself in a uniquely African way. 

I'd like to conclude The Revealed Truth blog series with a shot from the end credits.  I woke up the morning of the play to find the two donkeys grazing in front of the school.  As the day wore on it became clear that the the livestock needed to be transported to the performance area.  The crew pulled up along side a tall hill.  The donkeys were pulled on ropes up to the top.  Someone took a few 2' x 4' planks from out of the truck bed and positioned them over the space between the hilltop and the pickup.

The donkeys were led single file over the gap.  Led is not the best description.  A few guys pulled at ropes tied at the beasts' necks.  Another group pushed from behind.  Some poked with sticks.  I can't stress how risky it is to guide two large animals over a narrow, flimsy board over a ten foot abyss.  Luckily, the donkeys made it onto the truck.

Yet, that's the way life works out in Kiwangala, Uganda.  The people who live there are faced with seemingly impossible challenges.  Often the only solutions are unpredictable and precarious, but everyday Ugandans take the chance anyway.

While working and living in the country I encountered a spirit of perseverance over adversity like no other.  I mentioned in the introduction that making this film was difficult.  It took a year just to sync the audio and figure out the subtitles.  My inspiration to finish the movie came from watching the cast and crew.  Seeing them balance the burden of the world on their shoulders put my work in perspective.

Sometimes, I'd question what I was achieving by making a movie about an African passion play.  It seemed petty in light of the suffering these people are facing.  What good is art if people are starving?  Then one of the actors would see me working on my computer.  I didn't have electricity at my house, but I would bring my laptop down the road and sit in a dusty garage that had an intermittently working outlet.  The actors would come in, stand behind me, and watch me work.  When they saw themselves or a friend or neighbor on the screen, even if it was just for a moment, they would erupt with excitement.  They may have never seen themselves on video before, but they were eager to share their talents with an audience.  It gave them a feeling of importance, a feeling that they weren't forgotten by the rest of the world, that they were more than just a third world statistic.  The challenges that Sub-Saharan Africa faces doesn't boil down to economics, education, or management, but of esteem.  When someone feels they are of worth they are capable of doing anything.

I certainly can't formulate a solution for all of Africa's problems in this closing paragraph, but I believe that media has a part to play.  Awareness and advocacy comes from good communication.  Giving the voiceless a voice is the first step in creating equality on the planet.  These are ideas that I've explored in past posts and that I will continue to develop in future blog entries.

The Revealed Truth Blog Series

This is the final post of a nine part series that takes an in-depth look at the The Revealed Truth and how rural Ugandan culture influenced the making of the film. The movie is about an hour long but I've broken it down into 5 to 10 minute blog-size episodes.  If you are reading about The Revealed Truth for the first time, the best place start is the introductory post.

The previous post was The Crucifixion.   

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The Revealed Truth Part 5: The Last Supper

All of the actors in the Lazarus scene come from families that have been directly affected by the AIDS virus. In fact, no family has been able to escape the disease in Kiwangala.  Funerals are held in the village on a weekly basis.  It sounds grim, but Ugandans have told me time and again that they are making progress in fighting the disease and thing are getting better.  In the past someone infected would be dead in a month.  Nowadays, antiretroviral drugs, or ARVs, can keep someone alive for years.  The phenomenon is called the Lazarus effect.  I met one woman who had been HIV positive for 15 years and still led a healthy and productive life. 

The problem of the epidemic now is the false sense of security individuals get from believing that the disease has become benign.  Young people think that if they get infected they can just take ARVs.  This has led to an increase in risky sexual behaviors and infection rates are now back on the rise.  On top of that, HIV/AIDS therapy is heavily subsidized by foreign aid.  One of the biggest players in Uganda has been the American government's P.E.P.F.A.R.  The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief is a $63 billion worldwide initiative started by President Bush.  However, while the epidemic is still growing in Uganda, a cap has been put on P.E.P.F.A.R. funds and doctor's are now forced to send away patients.  This is compounded by the hesitancy of private donors to give more in the economic recession and local corruption.  If things continue this way the battle against AIDS in Uganda could become one step forward and two steps back.


On a lighter note, we come to the most exotic element in The Revealed Truth: the donkeys.  The entire time I was in Uganda I saw just one horse.  I've never figured out why there are so few there.  It could be that there were never any wild horses in Africa, but they weren't in North America either and here they've flourished.   I thought for sure that the British would bring some equines along with them to build their colonies.    Maybe it has something to do with the equatorial tropical environment of the or that Uganda's such a small country that there's no need to travel long distances.  Who knows.  They're just not here.

The play's were striving for authenticity and imported these donkeys from Kampala.  They became a spectacle in the village and drew a crowd even before the play started.  People would gather around and shriek in awe at the sight of the beasts.  It's was like when we go to the zoo in America and see the elephants for the first time.  One woman asked if I feared the animals.  I told her no.  Then she asked me if I eat them in my country.  I played the part of a good ambassador and replied in the negative.  I didn't want to go into what goes on at the Jello factory.  I do know that they eat donkey in other parts of Africa.  I discovered that at an all you can eat Ethiopian restaurant in Kampala when I asked the waiter about the mystery meat at the buffet.  Fish and grasshoppers aside, I don't care to eat meat so I can't give a review on the taste of donkey, but I can tell you that it looked a lot like ground beef.

Speaking of strange dinners, we've finally come upon one of the strangest Last Suppers I've seen.  It's also one of my favorites because of it's unintended humbleness.  Like Veronese's Feast in the House of Levi  mentioned in the introductory post of this series, this Last Supper has a carnival atmosphere.  Jesus can hardly be heard over the whirr of the generator, squaking of the intercom, and snickering of the crowd.  The disciples dig into a bag of bread.  Ugandan bread is bland probably has the same consistency of the unleavened bread that was broken at the original Last Supper.

Instead of a chalice of wine, Jesus passes around an old plastic bottle of Rwenzori brand drinking water.  This could be a message of temperance.  The Born Again churches that I worked with didn't drink alcohol.  Maybe the director of the play was trying to downplay an mention of wine whatsoever.  The reason for this prohibition also might have something to do with Uganda being the number one consumer of alcohol per capita in the world.  Bars are open twenty four hours and local brew is potent and plentiful.  Vodka is served doubleshot size in a plastic baggie and costs about a 30 cents each.   I've seen old men drunk in the street at 8AM and a two year old throwing a tantrum until his mother soothed him with a bottle of waragie.   There's reason to be afraid of liquor.  I once asked a girl from the church out to a neighborhood housewarming party.  She declined telling me that she doesn't go to discos.  There would be drinking and even dancing there.  It was the equivalent of "Sorry, I'm washing my hair tonight".


The Revealed Truth Blog Series

This post is the sixth of a nine part series that takes an in-depth look at the The Revealed Truth and how rural Ugandan culture influenced the making of the film.  The  movie is about an hour long  but I've broken it down into 5 to 10 minute blog-size episodes.  The next post will feature Jesus's arrest.



The previous post was The Revealed Truth Part 4: Let The Little Children Come to Me.

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