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'Journey to Jah'
On a quest: The film follows Gentleman and Alborosie, two unique reggae singer-songwriters from Europe who delve into the life and cultures of Jamaica in search of spirituality
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span class="caption">On a quest: The film follows Gentleman and Alborosie, two unique reggae singer-songwriters from Europe who delve into the life and cultures of Jamaica in search of spirituality.
At the other end on the spectrum from Fenster zum Sommer (Summer Window), the German Cinema Film Festival is offering Journey to Jah, a visually stunning documentary about two European reggae artists seven years in the making.
The film follows Gentleman and Alborosie, two unique reggae singer-songwriters from Europe who delve into the life and cultures of Jamaica in search of spirituality.
At a question and answer session at a festival screening at the Nusantara Multimedia University in Serpong, Banten, last week, codirector Noël Dernesch explained the painful process of making the film.
Jah took seven years to make, including four years of research, nine months of editing, 250 hours of footage and a trial-and-error method to find the best story structure to deliver the film's message.
The film focuses on Gentleman, a famous reggae singer in Germany, and Alborosie, who is famous in Italy. They find that Jamaica is not just the birthplace of the reggae godfather Bob Marley, it is the home of the Rastafarian spirit.
Rastafari is a spiritual movement that originated out of Jamaicans' fight against slavery and colonialism.
From the first scene ' a dreadlocked man, meditating with his Bible reciting the words of Jah Rastafari, a spiritual figure in the Rastafarian movement ' it is clear that Jah is not just going to be about riddims (rhythm) and patois (Jamaican dialect, for instance, as in Bob Marley's songs).
The film is also about the complex roots of Rastafari and its influence on the Jamaican people and global reggae culture.
Journey to Jah catches the dialectic between the ideals of Rastafarian movement ' one love, one world, one people ' and the reality of Jamaica, including corruption, gun violence, riots and massive poverty.
On one side is Carolyn Cooper, who insists on the Rastafari as exemplars of the pride of black identity, a positive affirmation that leads to an ideal state compared to the option of a negative response against slavery and colonialism.
On the other hand, there is singer-songwriter Jack Radics' pessimistic view, where he argues that 'one love, one world, one people' is just a slogan. It mirrors no reality because the Rastafarian ideals are imposed on people like Catholic dogma and is just not something that they feel is necessary.
In the middle of the debate come Gentlemen and Alborosie. They are the very evidence that reggae is universal. Gentleman, for example, comes all the way from Germany, speaks with a perfect Jamaican dialect and whose words are relevant to the Jamaican people.
At this point, Journey to Jah becomes even more ambitious. It tries to leap beyond the theme of reggae as a spiritual complexity to the aim of capturing reggae as a common ground of cross-cultural understanding. Better, it offers an alternative way to liberation.
The festival will screen Journey to Jah in Denpassar and Makassar this week. The film is also available for paid download via iTunes.
