West Africa is home to the griots - oral storytellers, historians, guides, entertainers and, most essentially, keepers of traditions and knowledge. They are bards for narratives that are never written but simply passed down orally. Gaston Kaboré's captivating God's Gift (aka Wend Kuuni ) is an example of that tradition translated into film's vocabulary. The 1982 film from Burkina Faso won the 1985 César Award for best French language film and is a landmark in the under-explored realm of African cinema. A mute young boy (Serge Yanogo) is found by a traveller who takes him to a local village, where he is adopted by a man who weaves fabrics. They name him Wend Kuuni, a gift from god in Mòoré (one of the major languages spoken in the area), for the circumstances in which he arrived. Settled in his new life and family, Wend Kuuni spends his time working, tending a herd of sheep, whittling a flute. He becomes older brother to a sister (Rosine Yanogo) who clearly yearns for more than the standard role and duties of the village's women. It's an almost idyllic, Eden-like existence in a pre-colonial time that a narrator vaguely reveals as "before the white man's arrival ... when no one was hungry and all lived in peace". It's a subsistence-level simple existence, but no one is unhappy. Well, almost no one. The only drama is a domestic dispute between an old man and his young wife. Their argument doesn't just disrupt but disturbs the entire village's calm. The life Kaboré depicts in God's Gift is far different from images of Africa we often see in the news: war, famine and desperation. When an old woman says of the village commotion, "times have changed", the irony and humour evident in the line seem almost out of place amid the pastoral innocence. Although this was Kaboré's first feature film, he was by no means a cinematic novice. After pursuing degrees in history at the Sorbonne, he went on to study cinematography at the École Supérieure d'Études Cinématographiques in Paris, then returned to Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, where he was a documentary filmmaker, the director of the country's Centre National du Cinéma and taught at the Institut Africain d'Éducation Cinématographique before making his feature film debut at age 31. God's Gift is elegant, and remarkable for its narrative simplicity but complex meaning. It's a visual presentation of an oral tale with a lead character who can't speak. It's not pro-African didacticism either. Kaboré's movie makes a bold comment about female equality and women's oppression in an otherwise positive, traditional society. It's important to remember this is a 31-year-old film made when Nelson Mandela was still in prison, and Burkina Faso was only a two-year-old country. In this historical context, the travails of a young boy who loses and regains his identity and voice - the film is also bookended by a short introduction scene and sudden denouement that explains and resolves the boy's inability to speak - has a glorious symbolic subtext. 48hours@scmp.com God's Gift , November 17, 2.30pm, followed by a talk with director Gaston Kaboré, 3.45pm, HK Arts Centre. Part of the HK Cine Fan programme
