So This Exists: Another Day of Life

It was while researching histories of Angola for my book The Benefit of Steel that I first encountered Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński and his memoir of Angola in 1975, Another Day of Life. I enjoyed that book immensely - it was the most welcoming book I read about Angola. Despite the subject matter surrounding the violence of the nation's independence, he wrote about people and places in such a way that I could easily grasp the situation.

I later learned that Mr. Kapuściński is a controversial figure in journalism. Although he took many photographs in his career of international reporting, apparently he took precious few notes. It seems much of what he wrote was concocted after the fact, so it's hard to know how much weight to place on any of the quotes in his stories. The debate on whether his work is non-fiction, fiction or a hybrid will no doubt continue.

I was stupefied to discover that in 2018 an animated movie was made of Another Day of Life. I try to keep informed about subjects concerning Angola, particularly in pop culture, so how did an entire movie get past me? An animated one, at that! It's quite an international production, apparently filmed in Cuba, Portugal & Angola by two directors (one Polish, one Spanish) and some form of participation between Belgium, France, Germany and Hungary. Fitting for the work international correspondent, I suppose.

Just as the debate surrounding Kapuściński's work has questioned how much was fact and how much fiction, the film version of Another Day of Life is an appealing blend of animation and live action. Even then, the animation was very clearly created through a rotoscoping process (said process invented by another Polish man - Max Fleischer). The Angola of 1975 doesn't exist any more, so recreating through animation seems an elegant solution. And, of course, people debate the truth in Kapuściński's works, so a sense of unreality will placate them.

The film certainly does not challenge Kapuściński; he's depicted in the film as very much the heroic journalist. His observations and decisions on what information to reveal about the situation in Angola is framed to make him a righteous man. But there was so much more going on in the original book than what the film could capture; the film is concerned mostly with him going to the frontlines in the war, but his descriptions of day-to-day life in Luanda were just as riveting to me.

Another Day of Life is quite an oddity - how many other journalistic works have been made into animated films? If you're interested in Kapuściński or Angola, obviously you'll want to see this. If you aren't certain, then I suggest reading the book Another Day of Life -- I think it will help you make up your mind.