This is Not a Burial; it is a Resurrection (2019)
Directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
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| Official poster |
I stumble on words, as I try to describe this movie. I was completely unaware of the makers or the language or the people. Yet it left me speechless convincing that this is sublime in a circle, I call it a circle because it's a school of thought that never ends. The narration was poetic and the moving pictures were cut out of a beautiful painting. At first glance, I was upright attracted to the film because of its grandeur. The film carries one of my venerated ratios, 1.37:1 (The academy ratio).
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| Mantoa in her house after the funeral |
"This is Not a Burial; it is a Resurrection” is a film by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese about the Sotho people (Lesotho) in the Sesotho language. The movie orbits around a 70-year-old widow, named Mantoa played by Mary Kuksie Twala. Who lives in a faraway village, so-called the plains of Weeping! The film is narrated by a deep mythical voice, which almost resembles someone known, but seems rather distant. The storytelling style that the movie carries is fascinating, it grips the audience. It is a slow absorb into the world of Lesotho, where we start to empathize with the characters eventually. The cinema gently opens with Mantoa learning about her son's death. Since that, she buries her son next to her husband, daughter, and grandchildren. This gives us a vivid picture of the setup. The collaboration of elements in this movie has put out thoughtfully, delivering a sense of subtext. The usage of color, framing, costume, lighting, and sound seems deliberate in the beginning. But as the movie unconsciously absorbs us, they perfectly blend in. We see distinguished Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow colors building an emotion to the characters. When this was discussed with my closest friend who I consider as one of the brilliant minds, Anurag Surya (Cinema of Life, Gushing Over Films-Blog), he debated that the symbolic influence of the South African Flag on the color perspective of the film. It seemed to me to make some sense in the thought process that made this film. As we comprehend the soul of the movie, it gets much personal. Some phrases of the movie were so powerful that it starts to trigger new viewpoints. The words like "Besides God, reality too felt further and further away!", were implying how Mantoa had nothing to lose, she is waiting for her death in silence. The dance sequence of her, imagining her family touches emptiness. The Bluest walls in her home create a contrast to the outside Red graded world, showing the differences. We notice how Mantoa ignores and shuns the life around her, pacing herself towards death. For me, it held diplomatic because the more peculiar I got the more wrongful it seemed. Although it's amusing to see how the movie narrows its route down, maintaining its layers.
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| Mantoa surrounded by sheep after her house burned |
Not so long that we get acquainted with the idea of progression at the village, the plans to move out and reshifting starts because of the dam getting built. This leaves the entire village in floods including the grave. As Mantoa questions the chief about cleaning the cemetery she mentions that "The cemetery is the village". This educates us on what the village means to their people, it isn't just a space of habitat but it's the roots of their ancestors. The story behind "The plains of weeping", explains a lot, it brought me a deep thought on the survival, reasoning progression, or "development". Where are we heading? Where is the end? However, for Mantoa it's the grave that's everything she got. The rains show the rebellious character of Mantoa determined in a quest to save the graves. The movie has various disturbing cries drawing vague melancholy. Specifically, when Mantoa cries aloud in the earliest mornings while the whole town is asleep, it carried a heavy affliction. It was the cry for the village and the landscapes which had reverberated into pain.
As we experience the crowd falling apart after knowing that they don't own their homes, Mantoa song packs them back. This scene gave me goosebumps, a nerve-chilling part seeing that the whole village gathering together strong. By this point, the film absorbed me entirely that I was floating in the plot. The most iconic dialogue which kept daunting me for days after the film is when the old man tells everyone about progression, "My son, what they call progress.. It is when men point their damning finger at nature and proclaim conquest over it" this right here, is how the movie redefines the idealogy towards progression. The movie made me question myself, gave me a new spectrum to view upon.
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| Two kids looking at Manteo go, The representation of color |
In later parts, we see Mantoa and the people of the village who are in agony looking for meaning, the purpose for their grief. The sequence where the church father goes aggressive in a game and hurts the sheep. His hands are covered in blood and he looks delusional. His piled-up vexation and suffering bursts out in a very inconvenient way, he also claims that the blood to be his. Meanwhile, Mantoa is in search to get her grave dug. She implies very clearly that she can't wait to meet her family and wants her body buried next to her husband. The fascinating part for me is the perspective of death in Mantoa. As no one agrees to dig her grave, she digs on her own. At the beginning of the movie, the narrator mentions how he saw the dead burying their own dead. The movie comprehends how the people are dead surviving meaningless grief, glooming progression, and Resurrection for a living.
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| My small illustration of the movie |
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