Film: Pushing The Elephant
Running time: 91 mins
Director: Beth Davenport & Elizabeth Mandel
Starring: N/a
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
This multiple-language film will be screened at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which takes place in London between 23rd March and 1st April, 2011. Find out more about this event by clicking here.
This is a tale of courage and love in the face of adversity. Rose Mapendo is an extraordinary lady who has experienced humanity’s evil but never doubts its power for good.
Rose Mapendo is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and one of the many victims of the country’s brutal civil war. A mother of ten, she was sent to a prison camp with her children after her husband was murdered by soldiers. She had no food to give her children and gave birth to twins in filthy conditions.
After an interminable period of terror and despair, Rose and her children were finally freed and went as refugees to Pheonix, Arizona. Rather than allowing herself to be embittered by her experiences, Rose works tirelessly with the UN High Comission for Refugees whilst also being a single mother to her large brood of energetic children.
However, one of her children, Nangabire, was separated from her mother during the years of conflict. Now she is coming to rejoin her family after twelve years apart. This reunion brings with it a lot of complexities – Nangabire must confront the new American life of her siblings, many of whom no longer speak her language, and Rose is forced to confront her painful past at the same time as helping the wider world with her unique blend of action and forgiveness…
Filmmakers Davenport and Mandel have found an important story that needs to be told, and they have constructed with deftness and sensitivity in a way which engages the viewer. They first give us Rose’s basic history and present her as an African mother in an increasingly American home, with children who were once physically and emotionally traumatised, and who are now skateboarding, play fighting and eating pizza. The transformation seems remarkable, but at this point, the filmmakers introduce Nangabire, living in Kenya with her grandparents and illustrate that this family’s past is by no means behind them.
Rose remains the central figure throughout the film, around which the other stories are introduced. She is a vehicle not only for her own family’s story, but also for the wider story of the ongoing civil war in her home country, and the work of the UNHCR and local communities in helping refugees. However, one can hardly describe Rose as passive and she takes ownership of the film. She is happy to share her deeply personal story with the whole world, if it will go some way to bringing peace and helping others. Throughout the film, her strength of will and her faith in the power of humanity for good radiates from the screen. She has values that she clearly believes in – she gives the same message to delegates at a UNHCR conference as she does to her own daughter in private. In this way, the various layers of the story unfold, with Rose holding it all together.
The filmmakers demonstrate through these layers how much respect and fondness people have for Rose at every level and how easily she can charm people, meaning that she seems equally at home in a small community gathering as in the spotlight at the UN headquarters. She is also an influential advocator of women’s rights and is confident in their abilities to change the world. She galvanises women in her home country to break out of their submission and causes powerful men to concede that if more women were active on the world stage then international crises may well be resolved more easily. Some things are portrayed in a way that they seem so ordinary, such as a fusion of US and Congolese folk music at a local fundraising event, or Rose helping newly arrived refugees set up their home, that the viewer almost has to take a step back to realise how extraordinary it all is. Rose could have quite easily got on with her new, peaceful life caring only for her own children, which would have been achievement enough, but her desire to promote peaceful resolution of conflict around the world is incredible.
The filmmakers blend scenes and settings as seamlessly as Rose adapts to them until it seems as though this woman could go anywhere and do anything without it coming as a surprise. However, they never attempt to glorify her; they simply allow her to tell her story. This avoids it being overly sentimental. In fact the opposite is true; it is so lacking in either self-pity or self-adulation that the story is even more remarkable. She is a truly inspiring figure for our time and the filmmakers have done her justice. Like a hall of mirrors, every part of the film is used to reflect Rose’s basic values and messages. This is much more than just a film and hopefully it will spread Rose’s message of hope and triumph even further.
Rose Mapendo deserves worldwide recognition. This documentary, which depicts her story so beautifully, should be seen by everyone. KS
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