(Kenya/Germany, 75 min.)
Dir. Mbithi Masya, Writ. Mbithi Masya, Mugambi Nthiga
Starring: Nyokabi Gethaiga, Elsaphan Njora
“Is this hell?” asks Kaleche.
Kaleche (Nyokabi Gethaiga) doesn’t know how she got to Kati Kati, which is an eerily and sparsely populated resort-like compound she faces when she awakens in the wilderness. Empty rooms and vacant halls are what she first sees—is this place the site of a massacre? If so, where is the blood? Her uneasiness with this resort leads her to keep exploring. Kaleche soon finds a group of people near the pool who offer her some alarming news: she is dead.
Kati Kati isn’t hell, but it certainly isn’t heaven despite
having the fixings of an all-inclusive three-star resort. The destination is a
bold setting for Kati Kati, which is
Kenya’s own bold choice in this year’s Oscar race for Best Foreign Language
Film. The film, produced by acclaimed German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Cloud Atlas), deserves to
be one of the breakout discoveries of the race. One is hooked from the first
evocative images that see Kaleche wandering cautiously through the savannah. Kati Kati only becomes more engrossing
with each bit of information it warily delivers.
The residents inform Kaleche that Kati Kati is where the
dead wait before moving on to the next world. One man, Thomas (Elsaphan Njora),
becomes Kaleche’s chief guide and shows her around the resort, explaining the
difficult waiting game and unusual circumstances that brought them to Kati
Kati. Thomas, for example, recalls arriving three years prior, while a fellow
resident, Mikey (Paul Ogola), vaguely recalls time spent elsewhere. They wait
in limbo to transition from one life to the next and an invisible barrier keeps
them within the purgatorial garrison. Departure comes with difficult choices. When
people do leave, they depart unexpectedly and violently.
In addition to the residents, Kati Kati features a handful
of lost souls wandering on the periphery of the estate. These beings are near-doppelgangers
for the residents, distinguished by ashen white skin that covers their bodies
like a rash or contagious disease. Not everyone sees these beings, which appear
and vanish fleetingly, nor do all the residents have a sickly evil counterpart
following them around the premises.
Thomas has a particularly toxic relationship with his
ghoulish facsimile, who seems to be a gatekeeper restricting his mobility
between limbo and the afterlife. His alcoholism affords a demon to carry around
of his own, and there are few moments where Thomas doesn’t have a hefty tumbler
of whiskey in his hand. (One perk of being dead is living free from the
consequences of excess.) On the other hand, the bigger the burden in one life,
the harder it is to move to the next, and Kaleche learns shocking revelations
about the baggage Thomas carries.
Director Mbithi Masya and co-writer Mugambi Nthiga keep the
details and circumstances of the world of Kati
Kati sparse and ambiguous as they invite us to contemplate the afterlife in
all its complexities. They invokes a surreal world that is both unsettling and
philosophical as the openness and uncertainties invite us to join Kaleche on
her inquisitive search for answers into her own mortality and the anchors
keeping her stranded between worlds. The residents of Kati Kati struggle to
accept their deaths, both in terms of the circumstances that ended their lives
and the finality of their mortality, and their days at the resort are restless
and tense.
Kati Kati is, on
some ways, a horror film with its speculative premise and atmosphere of eerie
ambiguity. Masya keeps the film suspenseful and tense with the ghoulish
gatekeepers who challenge the characters to confront their demons and face the
future, but these beings aren’t to be trusted, either, with their skin-crawling
appearances that evoke rotting flesh and decay. Kati Kati doesn’t let one decide if the world of the dead is a
place to fear or embrace until one is ready to leave the comfort zone of limbo.
The characters hurtle towards this decision, too, since grey
splotches appear on their own flesh. There is no pattern to the apparitions,
nor does Kati Kati seem to face an outbreak of disease. These scars bring only
further uncertainty as Kaleche and others feel themselves being stripped away
with each ashen mark that appears.
The minimalism of Masya’s aesthetic ensures that Kati Kati is consistently absorbing and
provocative. As a stripped back piece of genre filmmaking, it’s both exciting
and poetic. Natural performances draw the audience into the characters’ quest
for life and meaning—Gethaiga is especially strong as the soul-searching
Kaleche—while the hand for setting and place lets the viewer feel as if one is,
like Kaleche herself, straddling two worlds. The openness of the setting uses
the natural landscape for its breathtaking beauty but also for the foreboding
sense of danger that comes in the expanse of the savannah that stretches into
nothingness. Evocative use of the natural light also ensures that Kati Kati is
a resort in which the sun always looks to be rising or setting, but one can
never be too sure which despite the warm colours that dance in the sky. Kati Kati is a haunting and meditative
story about letting go.
