“ RiqueSpeaks : Liberia 77 ” A Review
Liberian Literary Magazine
“ RiqueSpeaks : Liberia 77 ” A Review
Henrique Hopkins
“ Liberia 77 ” is a part of an ever growing body of Liberia themed postWar films and literature . The 2010 documentary follows two Canadian brothers , Jeff and Andrew Topham , as they return to Liberia , in which they spent two exciting childhood years during the late 1970 ’ s . What makes the film resonate is watching the Topham brothers ’ experience in their own way , the sense of loss , displacement , disappointment , anguish and uncertainty felt by Liberian nationals in the wake of the long period of Liberian social instability . Also special is the weapon the Tophams use to fight back and reconnect with the Liberia of their childhood , as well as do their small part to bring hope for the future . Photography is their profession , and they use it in “ Liberia 77 ” as what the late great photographer Gordon Parks referred to as their “ choice of weapons .” The film resonates because I have always known Liberians in particular to have a great love of photographs . Photographs have also been my primary connection to Liberia ! Having been born in America after the 1980 coup . The Liberia I know is a world of pictures , some black and white , some with that 1970s brown tint , and others in rich old school saturation . It ' s a world of well dressed , mod ‘ 60s young men and women in High School and College yearbooks . Older people in their Sunday best , and President Tubman receiving foreign dignitaries in formal attire , or GQ suits , often with cigar in hand . A world of “ dream houses ” with car ports and wood paneled walls . Black & White studio portraits of Parents , Aunts , Uncles . Landmarks such as the E . J Roye building or the Ducor Palace are in the background , not emphasized because the important thing in the pictures was the people , and the people taking the pictures assumed the buildings that served as a backdrop would long survive , like the Eifel Tower or Empire State Building . It ' s also a world of images of rivers , mining camps , staff housing , country devils and traditional dance troupes . Villages with
Promoting Liberian literature , Arts and Culture
traditional housing , well beat down dirt roads , and smiling children , poor but strong families . As the years progressed and my Father made trips back home , it became images of dilapidation , the strong foundations still visible but wasting away from lack of maintenance . By the ‘ 90 ’ s , those images provided cause for despair . For the Topham brothers , their Liberian photos were the visual documents of a high point in their childhoods . They lived with their Parents at the Exchem compound in Margibi , where their Father supervised the manufacture of industrial explosives and shotgun shells . The family left Liberia mere months before the 1980 coup that deposed President Tolbert and other members of government . The photographs of that time spent in Liberia , which included pictures with a monkey named Betsy , became such a part of their identity that these two white Canadian kids were known as “ the kids from Liberia ” during their youth in Canada . It was the appreciation and love of the Liberia captured on their Parents photographs that gave them their artistic vocation and profession as Photographers . The two years they lived in Liberia gave them photographs that told a story that helped form their identity as individuals as well as a family . This is the set up for the shock and uneasy feelings of their return to Liberia , to discover that the war has not only destroyed people , roads and buildings , but also the photographic images of how beautiful and vital those people and buildings had once been . They talk to men who had worked with their father at Exchem , who told them stories of how they had been forced to bury or destroy pictures of themselves during the Civil War , for fear of the suspected wealth the possession of photographs implied . The only images many of these men had left of their handsome youth was their company ID cards , many of which had to be dug up for the Topham brothers return . Cinematically this four decade spanning story is advanced by its subject , pictures . There is a slide montage that tells the story of Liberia , ending on a brutal image of a soldier behind a human skull . The brothers had a goal of recreating the original photos that had been taken in their youth . Doing so
38