Something Necessary is a story about reconstruction and reconciliation in the aftermath of the terrible violence that swept across Kenya in the wake of the contested 2007 presidential election. It was made by the Kenyan director Judy Kibinge—one of the most prominent voices in an industry that is led by female filmmakers. Her film Dangerous Affair (2002) is frequently credited with initiating the contemporary renaissance in Kenyan filmmaking, and she has worked in both fiction and documentary. Her fiction films exhibit a distinctly modern sensibility and move beyond the expected story to showcase contemporary, and particularly urban, Kenyan life.

The film focuses on the stories of two people, Anne (Susan Wanjiru) and Joseph (Walter Kipchumba Lagat). As the film opens, Anne is in hospital recovering from a brutal attack on her family’s farm and hoping that her son—left comatose by the violence—will wake up. Her husband has been killed and their farmhouse looted and burned. However, despite the depth of her suffering this is not a film about victimhood. The dominant narrative arc of the film concerns Anne’s fight to rebuild her life and her slow and incremental progress. A clear resolution to her troubles is not suggested; for instance, at the end of the film she still is struggling with a tremendous amount of debt, partly from medical bills. Thus the film suggests that overcoming the effects of the violence, though possible, will take time.

The intertwining story of Joseph further complicates what it means to be a victim and what it means to live with the legacy of violence. Joseph was part of the gang that attacked Anne’s farm, and while the details of what he did are never elucidated, we know that he feels haunted by the gang’s collective action. He leaves the gang, and when a new job takes him by chance to Anne’s farm, he begins to atone for his actions. He is frequently seen in solitary contemplation, and because he appears to be meditating on his crimes, his efforts at making amends are genuinely believable. Yet Joseph never manages to escape his past and members of his former gang eventually beat him to death for his desertion, arguing, “You’re either with us or against us.” The line between victim and perpetrator is thus blurred in the character of Joseph, a complexity that is essential if the audience is to understand the genesis of the violence and the participation of so many ordinary young men.

The film focuses on the aftermath of the election crisis rather than on the violence itself, which included gender-based violence. We learn that Anne was raped during the attack on her farm, but the film concentrates on the psychological and physical repercussions of the incident. Anne learns she is pregnant and decides to abort the fetus. The taboo nature of this decision becomes clear when she steals medication from the hospital where she works, checks into a cheap hotel, and induces a miscarriage instead of going to a doctor. By presenting Anne’s decision to terminate her pregnancy as a personal one, contrary to both Kenyan socioreligious norms and Kenyan law, the film takes a decidedly feminist stance on the issues of abortion and sexual violence.

The implicit argument of the film is that national reconciliation cannot take place without a conversation about why the violence erupted in the first place. This is why the story of Joseph is so important: without a humanizing story of a perpetrator it would be too easy to assume that the violence was committed by “evil” people. In reality, the structural causes of this violent episode were far more complex and included the actions of politicians who incited unemployed youth to commit acts of violence on their behalf. Insight into this dynamic is provided in a scene depicting a casual meeting of Joseph’s gang, in which a broadcast appears on the television screen showing a peace accord reached between President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition leader Raila Odinga. The members of the gang are outraged—they feel betrayed by the politicians who had promised to improve their material situations, and they vow to continue their fight “even if it takes a thousand years.” The close-up camera work conveys a simmering tension as it cuts from one young man to another, crammed together in the tiny room. Carefully composed scenes such as this show that the structural causes of the violence were not solved by the power-sharing deal, and that much more systematic change will be required.

Something Necessary is an intricate story with the clear message delivered by the fictional facilitator of the National Commission of Inquiry at a meeting: “Until we as Kenyans understand what happened, and why we did what we did to each other, we cannot move forward.” Kibinge offers a sophisticated political commentary that is a valuable contribution to any conversation about postconflict reconciliation in Kenya.