Synopsis
Immersing itself in the daily life of one of the great orchestras of the current generation, this film proposes an incursion into the arcanes of a monumental genre of African music. Ya Mayi, Lumumba, Xéna La Guerrière, Pitchou Travolta, Alfred Solo, Soleil Patron and many others: nearly thirty artists feed the creative life of the Brigade Sarbati Orchestra. By entering the group and the city of Kinshasa, the film gets into the rumba as if it were penetrating a rootstock. Through studio work, rehearsals and concerts, different portraits offer a foray into the dynamics and stories of this highly acclaimed Congolese music. From local roots to the patrons from the diaspora, the voices of Rumba Rules polyphony are past and present.
A word from Tënk
Rumba Rules presents a colorful gallery of musicians, singers, and dancers from the Congolese capital. The members of the Brigade Sarbati orchestra are outspoken, brimming with charisma, and their names are more flamboyant than the next. David Nadeau-Bernatchez’s anthropological eye is evident when the camera follows the musicians through the streets of Kinshasa’s underprivileged neighborhoods or captures the frenzy that erupts in the city’s streets.
Without resorting to explanatory commentary or passing judgment on their images, the filmmakers give full space to the people they film and their astonishing eloquence. Through their curious camera, free of voyeurism or miserabilism, they capture reality and invite us to contemplate it with them. The result is a documentary as vibrant and full of life as the energetic rumba music it showcases.
Jean-Philippe Desrochers
Critic
