The Ants & the Grasshopper
Raj Patel and Zak Piper's documentary follows a Malawian farmer and activist all the way from her homeland to America.
Given the huge significance of climate change it is no surprise to find so many documentary films being made that are centred on this issue. The latest of them, The Ants & The Grasshopper, nevertheless starts off in unfamiliar territory since it is a film from Malawi. It may be made by two outsiders making their debut as directors, the author and academic Raj Patel and the film producer and sound expert Zak Piper, but at the centre of this piece is a Malawian woman named Anita Chitaya. Her strong personality propels the film which for most of its first third portrays life in Malawi concentrating on a rural area where the drying up of the land is a real threat to existence. Chitaya is herself a farmer and a married woman although she had wanted to become a nun and the marriage was one forced on her through an abduction. Luckily, her husband, Christopher, would learn to respect his wife making this a good match. Early on we see her taking a leading role in an organisation co-founded by Esther Lupafya known as SFHC (Souls, Food and Healthy Communities) which, among other things, endorses organic farming. We see Chitaya promoting gender equality too, this in a country where husbands expect their wives to work hard unaided.
We have here a film that is competently made and one which gives us a vivid impression of life in the northern village of Bwabwa. In doing so it comes over with real freshness. However, the film then shifts to America after the filmmakers have encouraged Chitaya along with Lupafya to tour that country talking to farmers and others. They do not hold back in expressing concerns over the extent to which America is doing too little to combat climate change and, by referring to conditions in Malawi which are already extreme, they hope to change the attitudes of those who reveal themselves as sceptics. Even though Lupafya is the one with good English while Chitaya largely relies on their travelling companion Peter Mazunda to act as an interpreter, it is Chitaya who seems to have a special gift for connecting with people. Both women hope that their words will achieve something long-term even if early changes of heart cannot really be expected (when they get to Washington D.C. hoping to talk to politicians only one senator is ready to oblige).
The footage in America does touch on issues other than climate change and farming methods, in particular racism, collectivisation and women's role in society. Even so, these additional subjects remain subsidiary in that conversations however wide-ranging geographically (Wisconsin, Iowa, California, Michigan, Maryland) leave one with an inescapable sense of the same points about climate change being made again and again. Important as it is to keep at it, the film does suffer from this repetition even if many viewers will forgive it. Importantly, although made by men, The Ants & The Grasshopper does to its credit have an uplifting sense of what strong, intelligent and thoughtful women can achieve. The final brief scenes of the film reveal that more than one man we have met in the course of it has been influenced by Chitaya and Lupafya sufficiently to make them change their views.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Anita Chitaya, Esther Lupafya, Peter Mazunda, Jim Goodman, Jordan Jamison, Denise O’Brien, Tyler Franzenburg, Ed Jackson, Tricia Jackson, Brahm Ahmadi, Jocelyn Jackson, Krystyn Leach, Malik Yakini, Paulette Green, Aleya Fraser, Catherine Gordon.
Dir Raj Patel and Zak Piper, Pro Raj Patel, Zak Piper and Rachel Wexler, Screenplay Anita Chitaya with Peter Mazunda, Ph Clare Major and Peter Mazunda, Ed Katerina Simic and John Farbrother, Music Graham Reynolds.
Kartemquin Films/Bungalow Town Productions-Dartmouth Films.
74 mins. Malawi. 2021. UK Rel: 23 September 2022. Cert. 12A.
