Makala

If you think Sisy­phus had it bad, then you may want to check out Kab­wi­ta Kasongo, the sub­ject of Emmanuel Gras’ hor­ri­bly dispir­it­ing doc-fic­tion hybrid, Makala. The film begins as a mys­tery, fol­low­ing a gaunt young fel­low as he wan­ders across a bar­ren rur­al land­scape in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go and, through tremen­dous strain and using only prim­i­tive tools, even­tu­al­ly fells a large tree.

He hacks back its branch­es and then begins to por­tion up the trunk. He digs a ditch, lugs the wood into it, cakes the wood in a mound of mud and then, using an intri­cate sys­tem of air holes, burns the wood to a lit­er­al cin­der. It’s not until half an hour into the film that it becomes clear what we’ve wit­nessed – unless, that is, you already have detailed knowl­edge on back­woods char­coal pro­duc­tion techniques.

Gras’ cam­era patient­ly doc­u­ments every aspect of the process, almost as if attempt­ing to emu­late an instruc­tion­al man­u­al. He allows each shot to linger as a way to emu­late Kabwita’s toil. And yet, we still know that this is just a high­light reel. The impos­si­ble pre­ci­sion demand­ed for this indus­tri­al endeav­our to work is akin to a pas­try chef pip­ing cream swirls onto a choux bun. It’s at once tedious and mirac­u­lous, an expres­sion of pure human inge­nu­ity and survival.

In its sec­ond half, the film dis­pens­es with any sense of obser­va­tion­al won­der as it trans­forms into a three-wheeled hor­ror road trip. Any­thing that can go wrong does, despite Kabwita’s con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al­ism and pre­pared­ness. He has just enough resource to make a sale hap­pen, but all of his (wood) chips are pre­car­i­ous­ly stacked against the odds that noth­ing at all goes wrong.

As he nears the city, we see that he is one of a giant flock of men with the same crip­pling­ly bleak occu­pa­tion. It’s beyond com­pre­hen­sion how peo­ple are able to live this way, and Gras is in no way look­ing to offer an easy answer.

Makala is released 2 Feb­ru­ary. Read our inter­view with direc­tor Emmanuel Gras.