Viva Riva!

Viva Riva! (2010)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: Djo Munga

Starring: Patsha Bay, Manie Malone, Hoji Fortuna, Marlene Longange, Diplome Amekindra

From: Several Congolese/Belgian/French companies

This was my initial movie from The Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire. This one happened to get international attention, thus its easy availability on the streaming sites. The plot made it sound rather dark... and this is a rather dark, twisted tale.

The titular Riva is a young man who returns from Angola, with a truck full of gasoline he stole from a gangster, Cesar. As Kinshasa is experiencing a gas shortage at the time (I do not know if Congo is still experiencing such problems as that or the power usually going out at night; from what I understand, though... it's a country that has experienced plenty of turmoil in recent years), it is now liquid gold, as valuable as hand sanitizer or toilet paper is now. Naturally, Cesar is pissed and looking to reacquire his loot, and now Riva has made a local tough mad after he wants to steal his girl; he is rather brash in flashing his newfound wealth, which goes about as well as you'd expect.


This is an explicit movie where you see characters have sex, there's plenty of foul language that is subtitled, and Cesar does some incredibly ruthless acts as he is on the warpath. It is not the cheeriest movie to watch by any means as most of the characters you see are rather scummy and have low moral turpitude. It was still interesting for me to see what life was like in the Congo and see its various customs, music, dancing, language, etc. It's not the most flattering of portrayals as you get to see plenty of corruption also... for those that love downbeat, gritty films, this may be up your alley.