Mónica de Miranda

The Kwanza River in de Miranda’s film is the site where personal and collective histories must come together and attempt resolution for the good not just of the heroin but as is implied by the film, but for the general good of all Angolans. The film opens with the heroine rowing her boat down the river dressed in a two piece army fatigue suit. After a moment she ceases rowing and notices herself standing on a bank next to a cage containing pigeons. This scene is potent with meaning a contemplation by the heroine about what her role in this landscape, in the transition from past to present to future must be. 

She states, 

“The future arrived. No longer to forge hope. The matrix of humanity in the current of the Kwanza. We walk wixtoth an absent gaze. When we recall, it is no longer with memory. But with its future. What can I do if I am this inside-out person, seeing from inside out. The explosion coming first and then the skin on the entrails. An unending landscape.”

Understanding rivers as the earth’s first roads is a fitting setting for the main character’s reckoning with her own personal familial histories, Angola’s still unresolved colonial past, and the heroine’s hopes and dreams for a future yet uncertain. The history of Kwanza River is an important reference point as it is via this river’s that the Portuguese were able to enter the Kingdom of Ndongo first in 1560, and again fifteen years later under the direction of Dias de Novais, who had been granted control over Angola but the then King of Portugal, as he and his army eventually invaded and completely take over the Kingdom of Ndongo. The then king of Ndongo, Ngola Kilombo kia Kasenda would be unsuccessful at staving off the Portuguese, but it would eventually be his granddaughter, the infamous and incredible Njinga Mbande who would take up the mantle and continue the fight against the Portuguese.

This powerful monologue spoken against the backdrop of the winding of the River Kwanza and it’s lushly verdant backdrop recalls speaks to both the perpetual movement and permanence of this river of the course of extremely intense, agitated, and violent histories. The heroine speaks as if she is a seer who with each row down the river experiences a stream of visions relating to Angola’s colonial past, present, and possible future realities.

Likening the film’s heroine to one of the African continent’s most powerful Queens may be coincidence but creates an opportunity for deeper exploration. As Njinga pursued the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Ndongo, so does the film’s heroine pursue her own sovereignty and by extension can be viewed as an advocate for the continued liberation of Angola for the specter of its colonial past.

“So remember, don’t do anything that does not suit you, proportionally in body and spirit. And every time you visit the past, wipe your feet.”

Negarra A. Kudumu in Figuring Out Freedom in Monica de Miranda’s Path to the Stars (excerpt)