The Kitchen Toto

As always, British filmmakers continue to make movies about England’s colonial past, and the disasters associated with it. Two films in the currentSeattle International Film Festival take on mid-20th-century Kenya in different ways: White Mischief, a bizarre, blackly humored look at a murder case, and The Kitchen Toto, a straightforward glimpse at racial prejudice through a child’s eyes. (Both films open for regular runs thisweekend.)

The child in The Kitchen Toto is a preadolescent African boy, Mwangi (Edwin Mahinda), whose father iskilledat the beginning of the story. To make some extra income, hismother lands a place for the boy on the staffof the area police regent. (The film’s title refers toMwangi’s job as a houseboy.)

In his new life, Mwangi sees the utterly alien world of the English. The sheriff (Bob Peck) and his rigid wife (Phyllis Logan) live on a beautiful ranch with their collection of servants. Their son, who is about the same age as Mwangi, uses his new playmate for target practice with his air rifle.

But when night comes, a different force emerges. Mau Mau revolutionaries appear, trying to enlist the black servants in a violent overthrow of British rule.

Writer-director Harry Hook plays off these elements in interesting ways. While the British are complacent and casually racist, they are still decent to Mwangi (the sheriff is an unhappy, complexly sympathetic figure, well played by Peck). And the members of the Mau Mau, fighting for the cause of independence, nevertheless threaten to kill anyone who does not agree with them; in fact, they killed Mwangi’s father.

The film ends with the unfortunate child having to make a tortured decision, and the tragic conclusion leaves no doubt as to the impossibility of colonial rule. (Any resemblance between the situation described in this film and the current state of affairs in South Africa is strictly intentional.)

The Kitchen Toto is somewhat conventional, and it certainly doesn’t have anything new to say. The main achievement here is locking us into the confused sensibility of a child, which gives a deeply personalized View of the various injustices going on. Which, as a matter of fact, is exactly what this year’s South African treatise, Cry Freedom, failed to do.

First published in The Herald, May 15, 1988

This movie and White Mischief were both shot by Roger Deakins, then still in the relatively early phase of his feature career. (Actually, leading man Mahinda appeared in White Mischief, too.) Director Hook snagged helming duties on the 1990 Lord of the Flies remake, but hasn’t done many features since. A Cannon Films release.