Poetry on film: a review of I Want to Be a Pilot

This evening, I saw the Manhattan Short Film Festival at the Oak Street Cinema. It comprised twelve 'finalist' films from across the globe (though the UK seemed over-represented with four films, and the US curiously underrepresented with only one underwhelming short), which were to be seen and voted on by audiences at 99 theaters throughout the world. It was an interesting concept, and I'm glad I went.

One film that was especially rewarding to me was I Want to Be a Pilot, a short from Kenya. Though the credits revealed that the story was fictional, and the characters were actors, it was almost documentary-like in its look at the tragic life of a child living in an infamous Kenyan slum. The camera work was shaky and the film sometimes grainy, yet the filmmaker managed to capture beauty in unexpected places--I remain haunted by the image of the main character, Omondi, picking through a dump accented by patches of delicate pastel, which the viewer soon realizes are the multicolored plastic bags used as "flying toilets" by the slum residents.

From a literary perspective, the film was interesting in that the only dialogue was the words of the title poem, read by Omondi. The full poem, written by Diego Quemada-Diez, is available at the film's website; I'll quote the opening stanzas below:

I Want To Be A Pilot

My name is Omondi
It means that when I was born
I woke up my mother
early in the morning.

I am twelve years old.
I live in Kibera
the biggest slum in East Africa.

My last meal
was on Sunday
today is Wednesday

I want to be a pilot
to fly very high,
far away from the ghetto

to a place
where kids have parents
that don't die of HIV
everyday

to a place far away
where guardians of orphan kids
cannot abuse us
everyday

to a place far away
where goats eat
things other than trash
to a place far away
where I am treated
as well as white people are.

I want to be a pilot
to wear a uniform
and fly very high

If I had read this poem merely as words on a page, I may not have liked it much: Omondi's story is tragic but grimly familiar; the language simple and repetitive; the poetic 'twist' perhaps a little heavy-handed and predictable. But, in the context of the film, the true poetry of the words is realized. The speaker's simplistic, repetitive language makes sense when delivered in Omondi's stilted, heavily-accented colonial English. The background noise of the village and the score of hymns punctuate the pauses in his rendition; near the end of the poem, all other noise falls out entirely to underscore the devastating revelation that Omondi is HIV-positive and his parents are lost to the scourge of AIDS, while the camera tilts up to follow a small plane soaring out of sight of the speaker's upturned eyes. Likewise, the images support the poem's narrative, and sometimes increase the depth of the poem's words: the image of a small group of the desperately hopeful gathered around a pair of charismatic, wildly-gesturing preachers fits perfectly with the speaker's desire to fly

to a place far away
where God just loves me
and churches are just

the mountains
the trees
the rivers

In short, this film demonstrated some of the ways in which poetry, sound, and film can work together to create a unique piece of art. If you can, seek out this 10-minute short--it will be worth your time, both as a student of film and poetry, and as a member of the world community.

Pat Smith
FUSE member

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