• The 'Disconnect' with Kenyan films is best summed up with reactions to its sequel
• While it has been found wanting in technical aspects, it is serial faces that irk most
Image: COURTESY
Watching Kenyan films has been a thing for me lately.
Having been an actor and a creative director, in my capacity, I like watching these films to understand the art behind the making.
From characterisation to the storyline to the cinematography, the locations, the props and the costuming.
I want to understand how they all blend in to create that specific piece of art.
If you had watched 'Disconnect', then you were most definitely among those who were anxiously waiting for the continuation of the film. I was, too.
The whole idea was this is 'Disconnect 2'.
I was expecting a sequel of course when it was announced that 'Disconnect' was making a comeback on our screens.
Firstly, 'Disconnect: The Wedding Planner' was differently accepted by the Nigerian and Kenyan audiences, being that the film is a storyline based on the two states.
Judging from the online interaction, our Nigerian brothers and sisters were not too happy about this new film.
Kama kawaida (as usual), if you want to know what people are saying and how they are feeling, Twitter is the space.
A few days after the film premiered on Netflix, while I scrolled on Twitter, I saw that Kenyans are equally not happy about the film.
There were some who were pleased with the film but there were some very strong critiques that were hard to go by.
And so I do a poll on my socials and I ask how my connects feel about the film and on a scale of 1 to 10, how they would rank the film.
I got a rank as high as 8.5 and as low as 2 out of 10.
Some of the reasons guys liked the film was the cinematography, humour, make-up and the fact that the actors were really good.
On the other hand, criticism was levelled on audio editing making some scenes sound like the characters had robotic voices, poor scripting, wasting good actors and the fact that 'Disconnect' actually ‘disconnected’.
One of the reasons that stood out for me when guys talked about what they didn’t like about the film is that they are tired of seeing the same faces on screen.
“I am tired of seeing the same 10 actors who I have been seeing since I was young on my screen,” one of my connects said.
“Kwani Kenya haina acting talent mpya? (Does it mean Kenya has no new acting talent?)”
“I prefer the first 'Disconnect' to this one. I struggled to watch this film, alafu kwani we don’t have other actors in Kenya?”
On TikTok, a creator made a video of someone proposing that she should watch a Kenyan film and she responds with a no because she knows the characters are the same.
During programming on our local TV channels, we often get to see new faces on a Telenovela.
Most of the time for films that make it to platforms like Netflix and Showmax, there has been a great concern in the fact that in two or three films, you are likely to see the same actors.
People who have been in the industry for a significant number of years.
I remember there was a time when an actor defended such a topic by saying that they normally go for auditions like everybody else.
Once a call is made, they are there and auditioning like everyone else.
This elicits the question of whether auditions are done just for formalities then.
Considering the creators already know who they want for the film.
Actually, sometimes they already know what sort of character they are looking for for a specific role.
But this doesn't stop one from going for the auditions.
A number of people feel like even though the Kenyan film space is progressing significantly, we still lag behind in the sense that we deny our talent the space to grow.
We are our own enemies from within ourselves.
Aren’t there shows that are actually watched and have completely new faces throughout the entire film series?
Acting is an actual job.
Just like medicine, law, driving, cooking and baking are jobs that are done by people daily.
There never exists someone who is a trained pilot and just flies the plane for one day and then that is it.
It is a career and they keep on doing it until the time comes when they have to put a stop to it due to several reasons, like ageing.
Someone would argue that acting needs new faces.
If that is the case, then where do these old faces who depend on acting go to?
Again, what is stopping us from rolling out as much content with different faces instead of dwelling on the same actors?
“Kenyan shows are watched to pass time, not due to interest,” read a comment on the TikTok video.
So, is it new faces vs old faces that will bring an unexpected change in our film industry?
This argument hardly misses when it is time to compare and contrast our growth in the film sector.
Feel free to debate, judge and conclude for yourselves.