VIVA RIVA FILMMAKA
DJO TUNDA WA MUNGA
HOPES T\’USHA INNA NEW WAVE\’A
CONGOLESE CINEMA

I think it\’s kind of a shame that our post-Tarantino world is interested only in reaffirming and/or rewriting the established rules of genre. Tarantino himself isn\’t to blame for this, as his films engage genre on a higher level than his imitators\’ do, but as with Wes Anderson, you can\’t blaze a new trail without inviting a generation of easily impressionable film students to produce half-baked imitations of the worthy originals.

So I don\’t care about how cleverly a writer/director can honor or dishonor a specific genre. That\’s meaningless intellectualism to me, a particular kind of criticism often applied to (but rarely justified by) many arthouse pictures these days. It has its place, but it\’s not really something I regularly seek out. Viva Riva set off all kinds of warning signs in that regard, so I thank you for allowing me a deeper look into a deeper picture. This post is basically an analytical and long-winded way of encouraging you to do more interviews and write-ups of this sort, because this is the kind of stuff that really keeps me coming back to the site.