Anti-Aids film gives a new perspective to campaign

Bad script but good actor, or the reverse, is a conundrum that actors for both stage and screen eternally face. In the case of Irene Kulabako Kakembo’s Beauty to Ashes, which showed last weekend at the National Theatre, it was mostly kismet, right from the opening sequence.

In addition to timing the Aids-activism movie to show over World Aids Day celebrations on December 1, it had several other things in its favour. The title cleverly punned the beauty from ashes line from the Bible’s Isaiah 61:3, and the character’s fortunes throughout the movie reflected the negative transformation the title suggested.

An HIV-discordant couple, Kayemba (Isaac Muwawu Gwayambadde) and his wife, produce an HIV positive Susan (Brenda Awori) who does not learn the truth about her status until she has succumbed to the sexual predator Aggrey Kabanda (Patriko Mujuuka).

By the time the movie ends, Kayemba and the doctor (Ben Mwine) remain the only HIV-negative major characters. Married but faithful women have caught it from philandering husbands, and an innocent housemaid transfers it from a father to his raging-hormones son. Juxtaposing and simultaneously interweaving the character’s means of acquiring the virus is another plus the script had. The failed love effort between Susan and Andrew (Shabba Serunkuuma) is a shining example of script writer Billy Ashaba’s genius in keeping the stories uncluttered.

Before Susan’s father discloses her HIV status to her, Andrew asks her early in the movie if they can be more than schoolmates and friends.

Convoluted network
Near the end when they resume the discussion, both are infected; Andrew from sleeping with a freshly-infected house girl his father raped, Susan from a combination of inherited Aids and a dalliance with Aggrey, the infected father of her schoolmate Eve (Aida Nalubowa).

Eve herself, perhaps heeding misinformation her libertine friend Angela gives her, gives in to a conquest-notching Charles (Douglas Semabala). Charles later grudgingly lets himself be tested. It is in so accurately portraying the proximity of AIDS across the social spectrum that the movie is most successful.

Its technical aspects played catch-up to the script. Although a few angles did not quite realise their intention, the camera work was so much better than the blown-out whites and shadow-inducing shots that mess up many Ugandan attempts at professional-grade movies.

The downside
For cross-meanings and diction problems the standard Ugandan explanation is L1 interference. No excuse exists though for “cuteness” not transferring from the page to the screen, as it did in the not-quite-there scenes featuring Eve playing up her parent’s unseen attachment to their movie daughter.

Otherwise, it was a wholesome effort from Kakembo and the like-minded filmmakers that constitute Trivision Productions, the technical brains behind the movie. The sound track was also both lyrically-conscious and sung well by Hum Kay and his compatriots.

The movie’s most enduring scene might be when Andrew learns Susan is infected. He gradually transforms from disbelief to staring at her as if she were a dead person walking. Until such a time as we can no longer wonder how seemingly innocent people got infected, Beauty to Ashes will not have a sell-by date.

And in the meantime, we could live by the philosophy Eve proclaimed on closing night as she stood on stage with Suzan and Charles. “I am the only HIV-negative person I know. The rest of you are all positive. Until you test”, she said, echoing the movie’s closing exhortation for everyone to know their status.

It sounds like a guilty till proven innocent approach to filtering sexual partners. But it just might be the one that saves your life.

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