Leaf in the Wind dir. by Jean-Marie Teno (review)

Jean-Marie Teno’s short documentary Leaf in the Wind offers a powerful portrait of Ernestine Ouandié, the daughter of Ernest Ouandié, a leading figure of the decolonization effort in Cameroon and president of the Union des Populations du Cameroun after the assassination of Félix Moumié in 1960. Teno explores the legacy of his nation’s troubled transition to independent rule with an intimate look at the toll political violence took on the Ouandié family and his daughter in particular. For viewers familiar with Cameroon’s most important documentary filmmaker, Leaf in the Wind will seem like an updated fragment of Teno’s famous film Africa, I Will Fleece You (Afrique, je te plumerai, 1992). This film helps to flesh out the imperial archive and reveal colonialism’s ongoing legacy in Africa today by exploring the personal sacrifices that Ouandié made for his people’s freedom, including his eventual execution in 1971. For its humanity and political relevance, as well as its refusal to grant immunity to the dictatorial rule of Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya, Leaf in the Wind is a worthwhile story that deserves to be seen by a wide audience.

In just fifty-five minutes Teno, with his distinctive editorial point of view, provides an informative and compelling snapshot of how decolonization was derailed in Cameroon. Viewers will recognize themes from his previous works, such as the damaging effects of political violence on individuals (as in the feature film Clando, 1996), and the need to rectify the historical record (as in The Colonial Misunderstanding [ Le Malentendu colonial], 2004). Like other contemporary films that document life in Africa from local viewpoints—such as Idrissou Mora Kpai’s Arlit (2005) and Adberrahmane Sissako’s Bamako (2006)— Leaf in the Wind allows Ernestine to tell her own story in her own voice, providing a critical perspective that is all too often missing in mainstream representations of African experience.

The aesthetic informing Leaf in the Wind is understated. An interview conducted with Ernestine while she is sitting on the porch of her house in western Cameroon is supplemented with voice-over narration, archival footage (some repeated from Africa, I Will Fleece You), and black-and-white drawings accompanied by moody jazz. This information places her narrative in the broader context of Cameroonian history, and the artistic pauses give the viewer a moment to reflect on the intense human suffering Ernestine evokes. The emotional rawness of her life story recalls the kind of testimony that victims of human rights violations presented to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa as reported in Antjie Krog’s searing literary memoir Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness (1998).

Ernestine’s traumatic story unfolds in fragments that surface with effort; we watch her wrestle with her memories and search for words to convey them. She starts at the beginning, with her birth in Nigeria on May 11, 1961, to a Ghanaian mother and Cameroonian father. She imagines what her parent’s courtship must have been like during the politically turbulent 1950s and then describes her harrowing childhood in Accra as the virtual property of her maternal aunt. Abandoned by her mother, who considered her an obstacle to making a life for herself with another man, and estranged from her father, who was a leader of the underground resistance against Ahmadou Ahidjo’s regime, she endured a grueling life of domestic servitude, ironing clothes, washing dishes, and sleeping on the cold kitchen floor. This hardship paled, however, in comparison to the physical abuse she suffered, including beatings that left her hard of hearing. After finally slapping her aunt back, she suddenly found herself returned to the custody of her mother, which proved to be an even worse fate. Ultimately Ernestine’s mother turned her out onto the street, stripped of the clothing her mother had provided, and Ernestine...