Movie casts a harsh light on yawning inequalities that threaten stability

It is not every day that you have a world class movie shot about the town you live in so if you are in the capital city, you would do well to watch the new movie, Nairobi Half Life.

In fact, if I were on the committee that will clear presidential candidates at the IEBC, I would subject all the candidates to a short quiz to ascertain that they have watched this film. No single work of art illustrates the problem of inequality in Kenya more vividly than this picture.

Nairobi Half Life’s storyline is simple enough. A young man of considerable talent feels restless in the village. He wants to be an actor. He feels his abilities require a grander stage. So he does what so many Kenyans, so many Africans, do every day. He heads for the bright lights of the city.

Things go rapidly downhill from there. I won’t spoil the story for you.

Pushing a handcart

But the movie attempts to interrogate how the other half of Nairobi, the one that’s not on Twitter, the one made up of young men who eke out a living pushing a handcart or riding a boda boda, lives.

It is not a flawless picture. In fact, like many donor-funded initiatives, I think there is a tad too much exaggeration.

What are the odds that someone would arrive at Machakos country bus station, get mugged immediately after alighting, get arrested by City Council askaris shortly thereafter and then find himself washing grossly dirty toilets at the Central police station at the end of the day?

(A friend who should know also assures that the loos at the police stations these days are not nearly as bad as the one depicted in the movie.)

Yet the theme of the film is entirely valid. Without preaching or engaging in too much NGO-speak, the movie reminds us that Kenya is one of the most unequal nations on earth.

Agenda IV

Our slums are probably the worst anywhere––worse than any in East Africa, more crowded, more unsanitary than the ones we see on TV in places like Bangladesh.

Such a nation can’t ever truly be called stable. We talk a lot about the Constitution, police reforms, etc. But who remembers the fact that youth unemployment was one of the major Agenda IV issues identified by the mediators?

Apart from the politics, Nairobi Half Life is just a work of great artistic merit. It is beautifully shot, brilliantly scripted and utterly absorbing.

The acting of the star, Joseph Wairimu (Mwas), who won the best actor award at the Durban International Film Festival illuminates the picture, and co-stars Olwenya Maina (as Oti) and Abubakar Mwenda (as Dingo) are not far behind in their convincing portrayals of Nairobi gang life.

The movie has been selected as Kenya’s entry for the Oscars in the best foreign language film category. It would be a worthy winner.

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Early last week, six Italian scientists were sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter.

Their crime was a communication they issued when tremors were felt in the town of L’Aquila in April 2009, assuring the public that it was no big deal, and no earthquake was expected.

A few hours later a massive quake struck, killing more than 300 people. The judge ruled those lives could have been saved if the scientists had done their job properly.

Elsewhere, a British businessman has sued the nation’s meteorologists for persistently pessimistic, often wrong forecasts, which have the effect of depressing turnout at his zoo.

Farmers up and down the land who eagerly planted early after our own met office predicted heavy rainfall in October will be watching these cases with more than passing interest.

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