Maangamizi: The Ancient One

MAANGAMIZI may be a modest production in terms of expenditure, but the storyline, the performances and some cases, just the faces make it memorable.

Initially it's the story of two disparate women. One is an African/American doctor starting an internship in a Tanzanian hospital. The other is a middle-aged tribal woman who hasn't uttered a word or a sound since surviving a horrific loss as a little girl. When the American doctor arrives to meet her new patients in a women's ward for the mentally ill, all patients but one are active, giggling live-wires. The patient in question sits transfixed, alone and ignored, stock still as if frozen, staring out a window on the far side of the room. Intrigued, the American doctor walks over to her. The camera shows what the patient sees outside: an ancient shaman woman standing in the long grass, staring intensely back up at her.

The doctor looks out the window. There's no one there. Then, as the patient turns slowly, silently, in her chair and looks up, the shaman's face is superimposed over the doctor's.

The shaman is Maangamizi (the 'Destroyer'), an ancient spirit whose presence becomes more and more real and who's powers begin to draw the other two closer and closer together in a series of supernatural experiences rooted in both of their tragic pasts.

Even the title Destroyer becomes debatable because in this case what is being destroyed via visions, dreams, memories and tribal magic results in healing and liberation.

Just because the film focuses on women doesn't make it a 'feminist' tract. That observation does this movie a disservice. One of the most positive presences here is the doctor's male colleague.

Anyone who longs for films trying to honestly and originally convey something about what it means to be human (combined with a tingling spine) should give MAANGAMIZI a chance. Maangamizi may haunt her subjects, her namesake may well haunt you.

I recommend this film to anyone on a spiritual journey, to anyone who understands the importance of forgiveness to the blossoming of the human spirit, to anyone who knows that the fruit of our future germinates in reconciliation with our past. Haunting, subtle music track by Cyril Neville.

A hypnotic, amazing film shot in Tanzania by an international cast, Maangamizi examines the spiritual nature of mental health as soon through the eyes of an American doctor, played by BarbaraO, who must discover the secret of a mysterious woman in a Tanzanian mental hospital and the woman's visitations by what may be a supernatural entity.

Any further synopsis would not do the film justice as it must be seen in full to be appreciated. The film is wonderfully directed and features a multi-layered script which takes its inspiration from the story of the Greek goddess Hekate. The cinematography brings the Tanzanian countryside to life from the dusty hospital compound to the majestic heights of its mountains.

Probably one of the most intelligent and creative movies I've seen in the last ten years. It needs to be watched at least twice to be fully appreciated.

I saw Maangamizi at the Film Archives in New York on 12-1-01 during the African Diaspora Film Festival.

The film is visually spectacular and the storyline is even more timely in wake of the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks. It deals with mental illness and how modern medicine and traditional African healing collide. Healing and forgiveness are also some of the topics touched in this film. It's a side of Africa that has been rarely seen or even touched in a feature film.

Samehe (Amandina Lihamba) a middle aged patient in a Tanzanian Mental Institution, hasn't spoken a word in twenty years. We soon find out that its because she witnessed the brutal murder of her mother as a child. But do the hospital staff know this? They don't... and neither do they care. The patients are drugged up most of the time.

Along comes Dr. Asira (BarbaraO) an African American doctor who has taken up an appointment there. We find out that she and one of the institutions doctor's Dr. Odhiambo were friends/lovers when they were medical students in America. Dr. Asira tries to connect with Samehe and finds obstacles along the way. Among them is womanizing Dr. Moshi, head of the institution and an ever faithful to procedure head nurse, Nurse Malika. Dr. Moshi is extremely jealous of the relationship between Dr. Asira and Dr. Odhiambo.

A spirit (The Ancient One) continuosly appears to Samehe. Soon she breaks out of the institution and the spirit helps her speak again through confronting the problems of her past. When Samehe is found everyone is shocked that she can now speak. Dr. Asira tries to get to the bottom of everything and finds that she must now confront her own past. The two women bond and soon they are on their way to the holy mountain (Mt. Kilimanjaro) for a ritual to complete the healing process.

Maangamizi makes us realize the effect that Westernization has had on African culture. The African cast does a marvelous job. The film was entirely shot on location in Tanzania. It's a movie that must be seen to be truly appreciated. Their website is www.grisgrisfilms.com.

Maangamizi is a colorful but cliche-ridden attempt at that most difficult of genres, allegory. The film tells the story of Samehe ( Swahili for `forgiveness') an African women who is a patient in a mental institution. She comes under the care of an African-American psychiatrist named Asira (Swahili for `anger'). Both women are enlightened and ultimately united by the mentoring spirit of Maangamizi (Swahili for `destruction'). Allegory is a particularly difficult construct in any artistic medium because it almost always requires the sacrifice of psychological verisimilitude in order to represent fully its abstractions. In film, the lack of depth and complexity in the portrayal of allegorical characters can often be overridden by the skillful use of visual techniques ( i.e. Kurosawa's Dreams ). Maangamizi, however, seems to be a film put together by a committee; although filled with stunning images, the work lacks a unifying vision, veering from the mystical to the didactic and back again without synthesis. There are significant gaps in exposition and plot as the writing moves from predictable to hackneyed to cliché. There are puzzling inconsistencies in the quality of the cinematography, and all too frequently the filmmaker resorts to a trite flashback tease to create the tension that a more skilled director would develop with imaginative camera work and solid written material. Maangamizi may have audience appeal because of its cultural and feminist concerns, but suffers from a fundamental lack of creativity and artistic control.