‘We have a duty to memory’ – Eve Ashby
Written, produced and directed by Hugo Blick (The Shadow Line), who even co-stars in future episodes, Black Earth Rising is set in the present day aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Still basking in the complacency of the End Of History mood following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the massacre of up to a million Tutsis by members of the Hutu majority government over the course of 100 days was a reminder of how suddenly and horrifically humankind can recoil to its worst excesses.
Black Earth Rising looks set to be a grimly rewarding, complex and nuanced drama in which long-held secrets are disinterred as bloody violence continues to be perpetrated by those who wish to cover up the past. Michaela Coel plays Kate Ashby, who was rescued as a Tutsi child from the genocide, then adopted by the international lawyer Eve Ashby (Harriet Walter). Now in her late 20s, despite bearing physical scars from her earliest experiences and subsequent mental health issues, she is working as a legal investigator in the same chambers as her mother, under the brilliant Michael Ennis (John Goodman).
The opening episode begins, however, with Eve trying to finish a Q&A session following a lecture that she’s anxious to depart as she has another appointment. One last question turns out to be a hostile and protracted one from a young, bespectacled man who castigates her for “vomiting up neo-colonialist bullshit”. He points out that all of the war criminals currently under investigation are black Africans and marvels at the self-righteousness of a white international system adjudicating on African crimes that “would not have happened if your world had not happened in the first place”. It’s an indictment that smoulders like a centuries-old fire, its deliverer unimpressed when Eve cites her own African child as she steadfastly asserts her own scrupulousness.
It’s Kate she is late to meet, however. She has a doctor’s appointment, at which she is to be assessed for a renewal of her prescription drugs. She’s prickly, sarcastic, mordantly jokey, her social filters a touch on the non-existent side, clearly highly intelligent and formidable, but also damaged and vulnerable. But she gets through the meeting, despite her mother arriving late – a step towards independence.
‘Let my trucks pass!’
Between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda a grim, somewhat ursine fellow brusquely approaches the border gates. This is “General” Simon Nyamoya, hero of the the Tutsi resistance. He is met by his old friend, the more genial David Runihura, special adviser to the Rwandan president. But, despite his conviviality, he has an uncompromising message for Nyamoya. His postwar days as a rebel leader accused of a variety of crimes are up. He must submit himself to The Hague.
This triggers an awkward press conference in which Runihura is asked why Rwanda’s President Bibi Mundanzi has so little to say about Nyamoya’s extradition when far worse criminals than him are still at large and she has been so critical of the international criminal court in the past? The answer, it seems, is pressure from America but also Rwanda’s own desire to open up to overseas investment – banking, tourism.
After some back and forth with the ICC, and some strong-arming from Eunice Clayton, the head of the US Bureau of African Affairs, Eve Ashby is appointed prosecutor in Nyamoya’s case. She evidently has some personal, as yet unrevealed motivation to take on the case, but her daughter is aghast that her mother would prosecute a Tutsi. “It’s like the second world war is over and we’re Jewish and you’re prosecuting Eisenhower!” she cries. She wonders aloud if this is an attempt by her mother to “drive a wedge” between them, force her to act more independently. Eve denies that that was the sole reason she took this case but Kate is distraught and and Eve departs for The Hague with her daughter’s remonstrations still ringing in her ears. What can’t she tell her? A remorseful Eve does try to apologise by phone for her outburst but her call goes straight to voicemail.
When we first see Goodman’s Ennis, he is sitting on a doorstep eating an ice-cream; as an international lawyer he has seen his share of human misery, but he carries the woes of the world lightly, including his own personal tragedies. His daughter, whom he visits regularly and dotingly, is in a coma. He swaps shifts with Harper, the new partner of his ex-wife. “He’s better for your mother,” he tells his unconscious daughter.
Back in the DRC, in North Kivu where the UN are stationed, a blue-bereted major from Quebec is having a mole inspected at a hospital when he catches sight of one Patrice Ganimana, a known war criminal. The doctor tries to insist he is mistaken. “The fuck I am,” insists the major. Later he tries, without success, to interest his younger, French superior to go after Ganimana. One young corporal, however, does appear to be interested, staring at a wanted photo of the war criminal. “Do you want to make a difference?” the major asks him.
Taking matters into his own hands, the major organises a raid on Ganimana – only to find his way barred by his French superior, who turns a gun on him. During that altercation, two shots ring out. They hasten to a tennis court. The corporal has cuffed one of the players but he lies dying of gunshot wounds, inflicted by the player on the opposite side of the court after the corporal fired at him. To add to the tragedy, the man the corporal has tried to apprehend is not Ganimana.
Finally, a genuinely eerie shot of a black masked mannequin clad in white sat a table being riddled with bullets. A rehearsal, it appears, for an assassination.
Notes and observations
The opening scenes with Eve at the lecture silhouetted against a white backdrop vividly evoke shadow play, the ancient art of storytelling. This, coupled with the harrowing, animated opening credits show Blick’s desire to push back at the often ponderous and predictable visual protocols of BBC drama.
Kathy, the woman at The Hague who punctiliously tries to obstruct Eve’s appointment as prosecutor, is surely channelling Lotte Lenya’s Rosa Klebb, the villainess of From Russia With Love.
There appears to be some emotional history between Kate and the young man appointed by Eve as permanent rep in the Nyamoya case. Seems not all men are as put off by her disfiguring stomach wounds as she herself claims.
Poignantly, this episode is dedicated to Mark Milsome, a veteran and somewhat legendary camera operator who was killed while filming a stunt sequence for Black Earth Rising in Ghana.
Although entirely fictional, Black Earth Rising warrants further reading on the reality of the Rwandan genocide. A starting point is Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Familes (Picador). Fergal Keane’s Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey is also highly recommended.
