Kenyatta University

Fine Art
Image Analysis
Saikati by Anne Mungai
Mrs. Anne Mungai
VTF 208
Introduction to Film Directing

Awuor Onyango D
M06S/16956/2013
An Image Analysis of the Film Saikati by Director Anne Mungai.

Saikati (1992) is a drama set in the Maasai Mara. The title is unclear as to what the
film aims to tackle conceptually except perhaps that it is about the protagonist Saikati. It is
impossible to tell the issues and concepts the film expects to tackle just from the title itself. On
viewing the film, one finds that Saikati tackles issues such as forced marriage, the place of the girl
child in society, economic inequality, feminism and identity in the African setting, female sexuality,
the divorce of the youth from traditional African practices and culture, the strain in parenting among
other issues. This essay will explore the continuity, psycho-analytic, ideologies and rhetoric of the
film and if they were successful in their aim to explore the issues therein.

I. Psycho-analytic
Africa is in search of an identity. We are divided in ourselves between the past
African tradition and the more recent, but widely approved, Western ones. In all walks of life, we
are split (Wanjiru Kinyanjui, Kenyan filmmaker). This highlights the main conflict in Saikati, that
of a girl who is betrothed to the chief's son against her wish to continue with education rather than
enter into the traditional marriage arranged for her by her uncle. Kenyan film-makers begun to use
the cinema as a "vehicle for social, cultural, political and personal discourse and praxis . .. to
critically engage, celebrate and interrogate certain aspects of cultural beliefs and traditions" (Cham
1996:4). The form and content of their narratives are indicative of the commentaries on the
"contemporary social, cultural, political, historical, and personal realities, experiences and
challenges" that they face (Ibid.) In Saikati it is a personal struggle against a tradition of arranged
marriage that is highlighted. This issue however is set within the traditional African society of the
Masai which then brings up the issue of tradition versus modernity. Because of the colonizing
structure, a dichotomy system has emerged, and with it a great number of current paradigmatic
oppositions have developed: traditional versus modern; oral versus written and printed: agrarian and
customary communities versus urban and industrialized civilization: subsistence economies versus
highly productive economies. In Africa a great deal of attention is generally given to the evolution
implied and promised by the passage from the former paradigms to the latter (Mudirnbe 4). Mungai
tackles this issue by juxtaposing Saikati and her cousin who comes from the city and comparing the
lives of the two. However, from the characterization of the cousin, Mungai avoids creating a
white/black dichotomy as the city is no safer than the countryside. It can therefore not be said that
Saikati's issue will be solved by her move to the city or that those born there will have a better life
but rather that one must find a middle-ground between the traditional and the modern within which
to reside.

ii. Ideology
In an interview by Sheila Petty at the Biannual FESPACO in Ouagadougou, Mungai
said the following on the conceptualization of the film narrative:
I was born in a village and had to struggle for education. I read in the papers or could see instances
of young girls getting married against their will and not being able to continue their education or
pursue their dreams. When I got into the film school, I started thinking seriously about doing films
that portray the feelings of women. These girls have no forum to talk. I have a chance to expose in
film the "untold" feelings of these women (27" February 1993.) In this sense it is then made clear
that Saikati is about giving voice to the issue of the place of the girl child in society. Not only is
Saikati given no voice even though she is strongly opposed to the marriage, her cousin Monica has
no opportunities in the city except for prostituting herself.
Mbye Cham observes that "in Saikati, its numerous technical and artistic
shortcomings not withstanding, Anne Mungai attempts a balanced look at female sexuality in urban
Kenya and at both the "push" and "pull" factors that account for the rural-urban drift" (1994:94).
This may be seen in Monica and Hamish's plan to prostitute Saikati to Alex, a British tourist that is
Hamish's friend. One could argue that Monica's characterization would lead to a purist view of

women, contrasting her against Saikati in that false dichotomy of the Madonna (in this case Saikati)
and the whore (in this case, quite literally, Monica). Not only is Saikati morally upright and is this
way because of her upbringing and her mother's advice to stay away from the ills of the city,
Monica is lacking morally and suffers the consequences by having the father of her child abandon
her etc.
Saikati's fight for western education is touted as a form of progress for the girl child
in Africa. Western education is continually associated with modernization", engendering a
constructed split between the educated and the non-educated.1 In this regard, Nnaemeka rhetorically
asks whether western education is the key that unlocks the door to modernity (1995:92) whereas
Mungai proposes to some extent and quite strongly that it is. Saikati sees herself getting some form
of independence from gaining an education, and though it is unclear how Monica escaped the allure
of a forced marriage or if she had an education herself, she does not seem to have a future much
brighter than Saikati's present predicament. Is this film then inherently a pessimistic one? In that the
girl child neither has opportunity in the city nor in the village, neither belongs here nor there, cannot
get any respite from the shackles of post-colonial oppression of the female? At first Saikati escapes
to the city for this opportunity and modernity but soon she returns having seen the failures of
development and somehow still determined to get an education but without a clear understanding of
as to what end.
In African cinema, the city is usually represented as a site where traditional moral
values and practices are tested, degraded, compromised or transformed (Cham 1996:7). This is the
exact representation of the city and Monica as a representation of the female form in the city. When
she gets to the city with her cousin Monica, we witness a physical transformation of her apparel and
hairstyle. She sits in front of a mirror while Monica dresses her in French berets, earrings and
lipstick. Her conversation with Hamish is reflective-of the power relations when he asks her to
order escargots, even when he is aware that she has no inkling of Western cuisine. In addition, the
spectator realizes that she is dissatisfied with urban life when she runs through the hotel corridor
and discards -her red French beret.

iii. Rhetoric
According to Petty, "Saikati's desire for education is founded not in a desire for
Western emancipation but for the desire to provide security for her widowed mother and
sister"(1996:84). This is contrasted with Monica's disillusionment in the urban landscape of
Nairobi. Monica says I'm not to blame if men make themselves indispensable and then they
disappear. Take for example, Melissa's father. He was nice. We had all the fun. He promised me
heaven. I was still in college. And when he realized I was pregnant he disappeared. I tried to look
for a job but no one could offer me one unless I gave them my pay. Then one day I met this man
who was kind, sympathetic and we decided to have a good time. And then in the morning I found a
five hundred Kenya shilling note. I couldn't decide whether I should take it or not. And then I
remembered Melissa and so I took it. That is how I started a relationship with Hamish.

iv. Continuity
Some parts of the film are hard to believe. Alex hurting his leg while climbing up a tree, Saikati
constantly telling her mother that she wants to continue with school also becomes repetitive and
boring while signalling that perhaps there were some failures in the script. Do the actors embody
the characters themselves? Perhaps only Hamish and Saikati's silent nameless small sister do so
fullly. Monica is sometimes hard to believe as are Alex, Saikati and most of the villagers, including
Saikati's mother and uncle. Some situations such as the stays at hotels and the drive through the
mara seem more set-up for purposes of forwarding the touristic view of African wildlife and or
1Mukora Wanjiku Beatrice. Disrupting Binary Divisions: Representation of Identity in Saikati and
Battle of the Sacred Tree. McGill university, Montreal July, 1999

Kenya in all its beauty, mainly because Saikati...who lives in the area, and Monica, who we can
assume is from the area as well due to her relation to Saikati, seem awed by animals that indigenous
Africans would come across with caution and wisdom they do not seem to possess. The
cinematography is sometimes also waxing on product placement rather than forwarding the story
itself

Bibliography
Bakari, Imnih and Mbye Cham. Ed. African Experiences of Cinema. London: British Film Institute,
2 1996.
Mudimbe, Vincent. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1 988.
Mungai, Anne. "Responsibility and Freedom of Expression in African Experiences of Cinema."
Imruh Bakari and Mbye Cham. Eds. African Experiences of Cinema. London: British Film
Institute, 1996
Mukora Wanjiku Beatrice. Disrupting Binary Divisions: Representation of Identity in Saikati and
Battle of the Sacred Tree. McGill university, Montreal July, 1999
Nnaemeka, Obiorna. imag(in)ing Knowledge, Power and Subversion in the Margins." The Politics
of (M)Othering: Womanhood. Identity and Resistance in African Literature. Ed. Obioma Nnaemeka.
New York: Routledge, 1997a.
Petty, Sheila. "How an African Woman Can Be' African Women Filmmakers Construct Women"
Discourse 18.3 Spring (1 996): 72-88.
Interviews
Mungai, Anne. 'African Women and Cinema: A Conversation with Anne Mungai" by Mbye Cham.
Research in African Literature 25.Fdl l(994) 93- 104.
Mungai, Anne. Interview with Sheila Petty. Ougadougou, 27& February 1993