Season of the Flicks - The River Niger Countdown At Kusini review

Season of the Flicks

THE RIVER NIGER COUNTDOWN AT KUSINI
By Frank Bach

Until a couple of years ago, the possibilities ot black-oriented films were quite

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THE RIVER NIGER COUNTDOWN AT RUSINI

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limited. The film industry was tightly and exclusively controlled by white people, and black movies were generally shallow, non-artistic glimpses at black life and culture. Backed by white producers and conceived by white writers for the black movie market, they were the classic "blaxploitation" flicks. Their highest purpose: maximum profits for the cheapest investment in the shortest period of time.

In 1973 the whopping success of "Super Fly" and "Shaft" established black film as a serious prospect for the powers in the movie business, and the number and variety of black movies has increased ever since. The result has been a literal blossoming of artistry in black film. Naturally, there were many talented blacks who had waited for years to get in on serious film-making – now they're doing it.

In their best moments, two films currently playing at local theaters – "The River Niger" and "Countdown at Kusini" – bring a high degree of artistic excellence and political relevance to the motion picture screen. At the same time they represent new levels of black control of the entire process of commercial film production

"The River Niger" is based on the highly-acclaimed play written by Joseph Walker and presented on Broadway by The Negro Theater Ensemble. It tells the story of a contemporary urban black family trying to survive and deal with several crises at the same time: The only son returns home after flunking out of Air Force officer training, his boyhood chums have become a well-meaning but dangerous "revolutionary" gang, and mother has a relapse of her thought-to-be-cured cancer.

Walker himself re-wrote "Niger" for the screen, preserving the power of his Tony and Obie award-winning work, and a very competent cast takes it from there. James Earl Jones is magnificent as father Johnny Williams, the house painter/poet whose masterpiece black-unity poem gives the drama its name. Son Jeff Williams is portrayed by a seething Glynn Turman, who has worked on TV's "Peyton Place," Ron Milner's smash "What The Wine Sellers Buy," and the popular "Cooley High," and now seems destined for super-stardom. Lou Gosset is memorable as Jamaican Dudley Stanton, the family friend and physician; and Cicely Tyson shows considerable talent as Mattie Williams, the mother and family tower-of-strength. Also deserving mention is War's tasteful, well-chosen soundtrack music.

The "Niger" tour de force was put together by a rather unique combination of film promoters which included Sidney Beckerman (producer of such films as "Earthquake" and "Cabaret"), with black businessman Ike Jones as his partner. Jones lined up the film's impressive cast and then proceeded to form a joint venture of black-owned businesses in San Francisco, Newark, New York, Detroit, and Hartford to raise one million dollars in production costs. The movie's success has already led to further plans for Ike Jones' production group, and if they can continue in this modern, high-quality vein it could be one of the more refreshing developments in the movie biz in some time.

Another highly recommended work, "Countdown at Kusini," offers its own unique approach to the popular film. Cowritten and directed by Ossie Davis, "Kusini" was conceived and principally financed by the international black sorority Delta Sigma Delta (under the direction of Lillian Benbow, a Detroiter who is also Housing Program Director for the State of Michigan) as a conscious alternative to the slick, sensational exploitation ventures.

In this movie backed by black women the central role goes to Ruby Dee, who ably plays Leah, the self-assured African revolutionary who thwarts a mercenary's attempt to kidnap her nationalist hero, Motapo. The source of evil is an anonymous multi-billion-dollar, multi-national Corporation that hires Ben Amed, a ruthless, wasted war-monger, to derail the thriving anti-colonial movement in Motapo's homeland. Leah draws an American musician friend (played by Greg Morris, ex of TV's "Mission Impossible") into the battle, and together with a tiny band of funky rebels they race to Kusini, where Amed's gang is set to pounce on Motapo as he disembarks from a train.

All ends well for the good guys in this basic adventure story, but "Kusini" nonetheless rejects many of the accepted notions of film "excitement." There is death here, but there is no slow-motion glamour in it – some of "Kusini" 's villains die rather comically, in fact.

The first movie to be made by black Americans and Africans working together on African soil, "Kusini" gives us a rare glimpse of the modern reality of Africa, from the swinging cities to the towns and steaming jungles. All filming was done in and around Lagos, Nigeria, which is nothing like the places that Tarzan used to hang around in.