Tough Bond

Has everyone lost the ability to think critically? This movie makes ignorant, sweeping generalizations about Kenya, Kenyans and East Africa that are not only inapplicable to a large population but that do not even address the REAL issue here. I find the approach and many scenes distasteful, disrespectful and dehumanizing to large degrees. The scene showing some of the children getting the results of their HIV test is appalling. This is one of the most intense and personal things a human can go through and should in NO WAY be filmed and publicly shown by a group of white, western film makers. These same feelings go for the opening scene of the woman giving birth. It really has nothing to do with the rest of the film and is a blatant invasion of privacy in the least. Just because they got permission(hopefully) to use this footage doesn't mean they should. It's important to consider how white foreigners can be granted the answer 'yes' by agreeable East Africans - some discretion is often required.

We don't need another documentary that perpetuates the ideas and narratives that we have heard for years about Africa. The film never once gets at the heart of the issues of why things are the way they are. The West/Global North are at the heart of underlying causes of glue sniffing and many other societal ills in post-colonial societies today. Where's the documentary on the effects of colonialism, structural adjustment, the world bank and the aid industry? Understanding these histories and impacts are key to fighting the poverty today that destroys Kenyan families. Judging by the way this story is told, the filmmakers would benefit from some education on what roles WE have played in getting Africa to where it is now. The fact that these filmmakers set out to "find a story" in East Africa, belies their ignorance, and is exploitative to a massive caliber. The goal appears not to have been to find and help drug addicts (meth is destroying families all over the US); the goal was to find the exotic. Luckily this film will probably never be a big film and we won't have to add it to the list of ignorant documentaries that capitalize on suffering and old stereotypes.

I screened Tough Bond at the 2013 Hot Docs Film Festival. Vandenberg & Peck spent three years in Kenya, filming the street kids and digging behind the shiny veneer of Nairobi to understand why 4 young people left their indigenous villages and end up sniffing glue. The cinematography is exquisite and never comprises their dignity. Tough Bond also exposes the hypocrisy of the Kenyan government, which claims that the problem of street youth is in the past. The cycle of dependency. according to Peck, is never ending and the film shines a spotlight on a problem which is not well understood. I strongly recommend this film and can't wait for the next project by these first-time filmmakers!

"Tough Bond" does what many great documentaries does—it lets the participants talk for themselves and there is no narration. In this case, those that talk and share their stories are mostly children—and are among the most pathetic children you could ever see. The film shows various groups of kids throughout various parts of Kenya and what it shows is very disturbing. The main focus is on orphans who spend their times huffing glue, though you also see kids who live in the garbage dumps, some who are living with HIV as well as areas experiencing famine. It's a thoroughly hopeless and depressing film—and the filmmakers do a great job of pulling at your heart.

The glue-inhalers apparently do so because the glue is so cheap and getting high takes their minds off their hunger and gives them a strange sense of community. So, they walk about all day stumbling and in a stupor—with a bottle shoved in their mouth so they can constantly inhale the fumes. You never really learn what the long-term consequences of this will be and the kids seemed to care very little about the future. Sadly, interspersed among these touching scenes are interviews with the guy who manufactures the stuff and he quickly acknowledges that kids use it as an inhalant but also seems to think it's not his problem but the government's. And, he then goes on to say that it's not doing them any harm and it's actually GOOD for them—as it keeps them from fighting or causing problems! As for the government's response, the film doesn't show much other than one official who talks about all the good they've done with poor children—though the many interviews with the kids would seem to indicate the opposite. You do wonder if, perhaps, no one really cares about these drugged up kids because it apparently makes them very mellow and docile. The film doesn't mention it, but Kenya is also known as a 'kleptocracy'—one of many nations where those that work for the government are often corrupt and get rich while the masses are impoverished.

I admired the work the filmmakers did and the trouble they took to interview all these people. My reason for scoring it a B+, however, is that the film never once talks about any solution nor does it indicate whether the starving kids who told their stories got any help or if they were compensated for their time and trouble. In other words, it does a great job showing us the problem—but it never really mentions what can or should be done with these wretched kids. This is an odd omission to say the least. Worth seeing and well made but very, very tough to watch.