The film Oka! takes its title from the Pygmy word for “Listen!” and really, there is no better fitting word to describe Lavinia Currier’s portrait of ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno. Here, he is named Larry Whitman, but the character and his exploits are based on Sarno’s memoir of twenty-five years spent studying the life and music of the Bayaka people of the Central African Republic.
During the film’s opening sequence, Whitman is cooped up in his New Jersey home, listening to the music of the Pygmies, that he claim to his ears is more lovely than Beethoven. Soon he learns that his liver is failing, and so with only a limited time left to finish his life’s task of recording every Pygmy instrument, he takes off once again to Africa. He sets out to achieve his final goal: to capture the sound of a horn called a molimo, which is thought to no longer even exist. It’s a musical bucket list, if you will, and Whitman is determined to finish it, despite his doctor’s warning that his health won’t be able to survive the tough African conditions.
However, upon arriving in Africa Whitman realizes that things have changed drastically since his last visit. A man from the Bantu tribe, named Bassoun, has taken over mayorship of the Bayaka and moved them from their home in the jungle to a much more restrictive village setting. He plans on using the forest, a sacred place for the Bayaka, as a moneymaking scheme by selling it to a selfish Chinese businessman. He also insists on Whitman paying for a permit to make his recordings, something he had never needed before. The usual themes of preserving tradition, the modern world encroaching on the culture of others, and other environmental and cultural tropes come into play, and end up constituting most of the rest of the plot.
The film is beautifully shot and seems almost documentary-like in the way it captures the world of the Bayaka. The atmosphere of the African forest and village are equal parts idyllic and dangerous, thanks to director of photography Conrad W. Hall. Many of the performers in the film are actual members of the tribe, and the realism of the way their lifestyle is captured on film would not have been achievable otherwise. In contrast, the main actors in the ensemble do not come across as naturally. Kris Marshall, who portrays our protagonist Larry Whitman, is best known for playing the kooky Brit in films like Love Actually and the original Death at a Funeral. To see him masking his accent in order to pretend he’s from New Jersey, and to be serious about his work and the Bayaka people, is a sharp contrast to his previous body of work. Marshall nearly pulls it off, but there’s something slightly off, a slight lack of authenticity, that hinders his performance enough for it to be noticeable in several awkward moments. However, for the most part, he does an admirable job, and his lanky blond figure provides a humorous contrast to the people of the Bayaka tribe.
The music that is Whitman’s passion forms the core of the soundtrack, naturally—can you imagine a film so focused on a specific type of music that didn’t bother to even include it in the score? It’s startlingly different that the usual orchestral, John Williams-esque soundtrack, but in a lovely and soothing way. The vocals of the Pygmies are throaty and rich, and their instruments hum and throb in a way that an orchestra could never replicate. I can understand why Whitman would compare the sounds to Beethoven, and want to preserve them so badly.
The music is also the most unique thing about the film’s plot. Whitman is an interesting character at the start, but once he meets Bassoun, the film takes a turn that is a lot more predictable and the dialogue a lot more clichéd. Nonetheless, in Oka!, Currier does a great job at depicting a world that many of us know little about, and a culture that deserves to be preserved.
"Oka!" opens October 14, 2011 and is not rated. Biopic, Drama, Indie. Directed by Lavinia Currier. Written by Lavinia Currier, Louis Sarno, Suzanne Stroh. Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Kris Marshall, Will Yun Lee.
