The easy picture of pushing a seam via a stitching machine turns into a profound life assertion in Rosine Mbakam’s debut characteristic, which is concentrated on proficient clothier Pierrette (performed by the director’s cousin Pierrette Aboheu Njeuthat) within the Cameroonian metropolis Douala. It’s emblematic of the necessity to hold transferring ahead in each day life – and to return out the opposite facet smiling, with stoicism and resilience. As one buyer places it: “I’m getting by. That’s life. If you fall down, you stand up once more.”
Pierrette is having, it must be stated, an particularly tough day. A single mom additionally caring for an aged mum or dad (Marguerite Mbakop), she is already scraping for money. Frequently bartered into submission by her clientele, she at all times holds her gaze bashfully downwards – both out of anger, or embarrassment at having to claim herself. When she takes a motorbike taxi after work, robbers relieve her of all her financial savings, disastrously simply as the brand new faculty yr is starting. In the meantime her house is flooded, endangering the garments she is making ready and leaving her questioning how she is going to escape this soggy calvary.
Shot largely in medium closeup documentary-style segments, acted with flawless naturalism by a non-professional forged, Mambar Pierrette is neorealist all the way down to its bones. However with the seamstress and her circle of acquaintances coming collectively to commerce their frustrations – a visit to Guinea that nearly ends in intercourse work, a disappointing fling – it additionally attracts on the gossipy home drama of neighbouring Nollywood. Older storytelling traditions are layered in there too: Pierrette’s forlorn mom tells her grandson Duval (Duval Franklin Nwodu Chinedu) a disturbing juju-type story of as soon as having her coronary heart switched out for a bit of boy’s.
Such attitudes present the generational hole working in central Africa, between the likes of Pierrette’s mom – who insists her daughter shouldn’t report her feckless husband to the authorities – and a brand new, extra proactive cohort. Pierrette and pals are those pooling financial savings in tontines, refusing to acquiesce with how issues had been. However Mbakam at all times incorporates these state-of-the-nation diagnostics with subtlety, and a degree of humour that means none of those strivers is a prisoner of their circumstances.
Close to the top, a passing entertainer disparages the white model exterior the workshop that has been surveying everybody’s tribulations. Mbakam’s feminist parable has a profitable integrity and style.
