In the Name of Christ (1993)

a.k.a. Au Nom Du Christ

Director: Roger Gnoan M'Bala

Screenplay: Jean-Marie Adiaffi, Bertin Akaffouand Roger Gnoan M'Bala           

Cast: Albert Ayatollah, Akissi Delta, Pierre Gondo, Martin Guedeba, Félix Lago and Naky Sy Savane

Ephemeral Waves

Full Plot Spoiler Throughout

 

You'll eat with your anuses...

From a country, Cote d'Ivoire, whose cinema is normally not see of in English speaking territories, at least in Britain, I am introduced to Roger Gnoan M'Bala, an Ivorian filmmaker who started in the seventies, progressing to making theatrical length films in the nineteen eighties, and despite being constant over to the 2010s in production, was utterly unknown to me until here. The state of how we access African cinema, as a vast continent let alone remembering it is many individual countries with their own cultures, is possibly one of the biggest embarrassments I would accuse cinema and film distribution in English speaking countries to having committed. It is a shameful state of affairs that, when we have shelves or sections on physical and virtual film selections for "World Cinema", we do really have access even to canonical titles from filmmakers like Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène let alone a film like In Search of Christ being only available say when a site like MUBI graciously makes it available to at least see. Preservation is a concern with this too, as whilst we can thank Martin Scorsese and the World Cinema Foundation for stepping in to help the cause among others, it is shocking for myself that this film from the early nineties, in the version I saw for this review, was still with damages to the print used. This is worse especially as In the Name of Christ is a strange, fascinating film worthy of interest.

This case is definitely unique, undoubtedly a film if you were able to see multiple times would develop complex layers, not so much a comedy as was advertised to me but a strange satire with a significant sense, as a former French colony with the film's main language of use French, that this is a native Ivorian director tackling the complexity of that influence on a religious and cultural level. Here is an insidious influence of Western culture I would argue you might not necessarily get from a Western culture, even if anti-religious, about the Western form of Christianity suddenly intrude on a small African village. A village which, even if set in the then-present day, is literally a tiny African village where the locals where their traditional dress and an occasional suit, have their own indigenous customs, and still live lives with farming and their community, one that feels separated from the rest of the country this village is set in even if outsiders may appear and the lead character, Magloire I, the self proclaimed “cousin of Christ" and founder of this Christian influence, eventually daydreams himself on an airplane preaching his take on the Gospel of Christ. Adding to the issue is that, whatever Magloire I actually has the blessing of a God or not, this is a perverted take on Christianity that adds additional problems as well.

One day Magloire I, a male swine herder who is bullied, and early on whilst attempting to castrate a pig is prevented from doing so by being pissed on, suddenly has visions which makes him believe he is the aforementioned cousin of Christ. Very quickly, very fast, this is not a good thing, as whether the visions are real, and whether he actually managed to blind a tormenter of his, and bring back the sight of, and removed the madness of a woman to cure her, when he wins over the village he has immediately turned this into a cult worshipping himself rather than anything beneficial. Everyone to his proclamation must worship him, part of the produce by the farmers must go to him, and any women are encouraged to go to him so he can have sex with them, enforcing the patriarchal ideal of motherhood and childbirth.

He definitely has a different take on Christianity alongside his followers; one follower, once a man who tormented him, argues that due to the Bible having too multiple interpretations needs to be reinterpreted, with Magloire I writing a "Final Testament" of his own. In the midst of this, two brothers split and represent the schism between this Westernised religion and local tradition, as one sides on Magloire I's system and the other stays in the outskirts as a critic who follows the original customs more strongly, brotherly love preventing them from breaking apart as the brother in the Christian faith still looks out for the other even if they represent opposite paths in beliefs and ideals. And, notable, whilst the satire is aimed squarely at this take on Christianity, the brother who joins Magloire I's side argues that the old customs did not help in the slightest, which have a pressing emotional weight to them as old idols and fetishes, the original term of magical objects, are thrown onto a mass bonfire, including a fertility statue with an exceeding large phallus by a woman who feels it has been utterly useless in helping her become pregnant with child.

There is a sense a lot is to be picked, scabs to open up, in how this represents Cote d'Ivoire's history of colonialism which is going to pass many of our heads if we, tragically, do not learn of the history of colonialism in African nations directors like Roger Gnoan M'Bala are clearly dealing with. His take on Christianity here also has to be unpicked as this is not even the version of a sacred, virtuous form that was the original representation, where Jesus Christ died for the sins of even those who sinned and effectively erased the old angry God of the Old Testament, but a sudden alien object dropped one day in this African village. The village takes to it as, after proving his miracles, Magloire I becomes really good at talking rhetoric, promising a better life which, frankly, is something even outside of religious figures as something anyone wishing for a better life would understandably listen to, even if you fall for it and end up effectively with a cult leader ruling the place.

If it is comedy, it is the driest imaginable, contrasting its matter of fact look and aesthetic, mostly set in the countryside and only betraying its time of making by a mood inducing synthesizer score. It is laced with that aforementioned oddness, where the material is a drama, but because of how Magloire I is depicted, with the tightrope walk that he is neither just a charlatan but not good person finding a new humanity, everything is peculiar in tone deliberately. It cuts the chaff of cheap anti-religious commentary, of building a corrupt religious hypocrite as you might find in an American or British film, by having a figure whose visions are never explained and ambiguous, the first of a young child like a vision of the burning bush for Moses, and later even wadding in the sea with Christ Himself, notably the White Westernised version rather than the Jewish prophet born in the Middle East in Judea. There is also the fact that, in the satire, even if the visions are true the swine herder has, after spending his life belittled and mocked, even spitefully killing a pregnant sow before the visions, found an excuse to have access to constant attention, food and a lot of sex. Rather than grow as a better person, he has indulged in base pleasures instead.

He is a fascinating anti-hero in the centre, very much a case of how religion is betrayed by the banalities of humanity most times than necessarily by blame of an omniscient being directly involved, with characters around the side circling around him. Be it the brothers, a woman (with her husband) from the outside world who comes to the village as, unable to have children, she feels she can with Magloire I, or even the former bully, a very diminutive man, who among them expresses his love to a woman in the midst of all this. Magloire I does eventually perform a ritualistic crucifixion where he is tied onto a wooden cross. When this is not enough, he does the same again but recreates the full crucifixion but with a firing squad of old (possible) soldiers aiming rifles at him to fire. This does not end well.

Even if you have read this whole review without ever watching the film, I would immediately recommend, if you can track it down, seeing In the Name of Christ as, only around eighty minutes, this is a fascinating film which never drags, speaks concisely, and even if more could have been done with the premise and characters, is so clearly complex already with what you have that it is not a film that would lose power if you watched it again over and over. Again, we do not support African filmmakers and cinema enough. Even if that comes from my own opinion from my own little world as an opinion, if we cannot even get a more vicious satire of Western influence on African countries like Djibril Diop Mambéty's Touki Bouki (1973) in the British Isles before the 2020s, beyond MUBI (again) being gracious in letting people see it briefly, this quietly perverse but reserved satire is even more marginalised as a result.