Bissau-Guinean filmmaker Flora Gomes' Those Whom Death Refused (original title: Mortu Nega), which screens in a restored print on Saturday at the BFI London Film Festival, is an arresting portrait of independence and its aftermath. This keystone of postcolonial African cinema blends documentary techniques with an almost Malick-like lyricism as it focuses on one woman’s ordeal, all the while prioritising mood over conventional narrative. Set during the Guinea-Bissau war of independence against Portugal and the turbulent years that followed, the haunting Those Whom Death Refused expertly conveys the weight of history.
The 1970s-set film follows Diminga (Bia Gomes), who edges her way through war-ravaged landscapes to find her soldier husband Sako (Tunu Eugenio Almada). Through Diminga's eyes, Flora Gomes deftly builds a story that examines the psychological burden of conflict on women, and, by bringing Diminga to the forefront of the film, neatly subverts our expectations of an 80s war movie. Once the war has been won, drought and political instability provide a much-needed reminder that the struggle—albeit one of a very different kind—continues long after the colonial powers have left, as the new nation finds its feet.
The first half of the film is a lean, taut affair, one that underlines the asymmetrical nature of the guerrilla forces taking on the Portuguese, with the latter's helicopters raining down bullets on a makeshift army scampering across the ground. While it's obvious that the budget for Guinea-Bissau's very first feature film is not particularly high, the action scenes are well mounted, and Gomes manages the tension with style. The film loosens its grip once both the war and its combat scenes are over, with Gomes observing, with an at times near-ethnographic eye, a newly postcolonial country gingerly feeling its way into independence.
As the film gives way to this more contemplative tone, Gomes captures the landscape of post-war Guinea-Bissau as an almost stone tape-like vessel of memory, with sweeping shots of the countryside reflecting both the scars of war and the immutability of the land. While Those Whom Death Refused runs to a relatively brief 93 minutes, the film is measured, at times slow, which might make the going tough for those unaccustomed to such cinematic grammar. But this elliptical rhythm dictates the pace of the storytelling, carving out space for a stillness that acts as a most welcome counterpoint to the political Sturm und Drang.