Film Review: Pushing The Elephant

Image via ifccenter.com

Earlier this week, I watched the Independent Lens broadcast of Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel‘s documentary, Pushing The Elephant. The film follows Rose Mapendo, a Banyamulenge Tutsi refugee living in Arizona, as she is reunited with her daughter Nangabire after thirteen years of separation. Set against the aftermath of the Second Congo War, Pushing The Elephant is simultaneously a story about family, adjustment to new surroundings and surviving violence.

When the Second Congo War began in 1998, Nangabire Mapendo was living with her grandparents, unable to contact her parents or siblings. The separation intensified when Nangabire’s father was murdered and her mother and siblings were sent to a death camp. After Rose and her children survived the camp and successfully relocated to the United States, Rose began to advocate for refugees living in the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. This leads to her eventual reunion with Nangabire, at which point Pushing The Elephant opens. The rest of the documentary focuses on the Mapendo family, a microcosm of the refugee work to which Rose has dedicated her life.

The film is at its strongest when it focuses on Nangabire’s adjustment to life in the United States. Since she is a teenager, Nangabire attends high school, but it is a challenge for her as her education was cut short as a young girl. She does not speak English when she arrives to the U.S., so she is isolated by language barriers at school and at home, when she wants to communicate with her younger siblings who have grown up in the U.S. Though she is clearly relieved to be living with her family again, there is a certain degree of distance that takes awhile to dissipate from her eyes.

Image via wmm.com

Though Rose is presented as the central character in the film, I found Nangabire to be the most engaging character. Her body language and interactions with family members and peers reveal a strong detachment from her immediate surroundings. At one point, Rose tells the viewers that Nangabire is with her, but “not fully,” which suggests that Rose feels the same distance that comes across visually. But through voice-overs and glimpses into the journal Nangabire keeps at school, the audience is able to peek inside her head, if only temporarily. She seems almost more at ease talking to the filmmakers and the audience about her life and her fears than she is with her mother and siblings. This leads to a degree of intimacy between the subject and the viewer that is incredibly rare and challenging to achieve. Certainly, Rose’s testimonies are moving and genuine, but she is able to tell her story effortlessly because she tells it often, as part of her work with refugees, outreach and speaking engagements. Nangabire, on the other hand, opens up to the filmmakers as if she has never opened up to anyone else before. Though I doubt that’s actually the case — certainly, Nangabire’s family has heard what happened to her during her thirteen years of separation — the way the candidness of her words contrast with her distance at home and at school creates a very personal, engaging relationship with the viewer. I only wish more of the film had focused on her, so that we would have more time to get to know her.

Other scenes that are particularly strong are the moments when Rose reconciles traveling away from her family to advocate for refugees around the world. Rose is a single mother, raising ten children and one grandchild without much support, and she is incredibly committed and devoted to her family. But, for Rose, that commitment extends to women and children in Rwanda, Congo and Burundi who are striving to improve their lives. Her belief is that change cannot come on an individual basis. Change can only be achieved by a big, committed group working together — or, in her words, “many people together can push an elephant.” So while it is hard for her to travel around the world and leave her family on occasion, and while her children wish she would travel less, Rose stands by her principles and follows her calling. Her simultaneous commitment to her family and the greater refugee community is incredibly moving, as is her deliberation as to which decision she should make.

Pushing The Elephant is a challenging film to watch — the atrocities experienced by Rose, Nangabire and their family are difficult to hear, and that’s exactly how it should be. But what is most memorable about the film are the characters themselves. Rose and Nangabire are incredibly engaging and relatable characters. Though the political and cultural context of the film is critical to appreciate it as a whole, the ultimate story is less about war and more about the developing relationship between a mother and a daughter. By the end of the film, the viewer has a sense that Nangabire is finally “fully” with her mother. That intensely personal glimpse into a family’s life is beautiful, and it’s what I’ll remember about the film for years to come.

To learn more about Pushing The Elephant, check out the trailer below. (Video contains subtitles.)

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