Watching Benda Bilili in a cinema full of affluent westerners is an unsettling experience. The documentary follows the lives of a group of paraplegic Congolese musicians. The naturally philosophic attitude of Papa Ricky, and the other members of the music collective “Staff Benda Bilili”, has produced an extremely arresting film – far more so than had the documentary been produced with moralistic purposes in mind.

French directors Renaud Barret and Florent de La Tuyalle originally went to the Congo in the interests of making records. But, Barret commented at a Q&A session following a preview screening of the film at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse, that they “fell in love” with Staff Benda Bilili, and were unable to take their camera off them for five years. As a result of the trust that the two directors were able to earn from their subjects, Benda Bilili offers a rare glimpse into life in the Congo’s capital city, Kinshasa, from the perspectives of street kids and “street daddies” – as one member of the band refers to himself. The film is almost completely devoid of narration, which is to its benefit. Instead the band’s lyrics act as a revealing means of conveying their thoughts and feelings. “Who are you to make fun of us?” – sings the group of beyond life expectancy fifty-somethings, seated in their custom-made wheelchairs; playing instruments that would here be considered useless.

The film documents the band’s rise to greater success, which eventually takes them on a tour of Europe. A particularly affecting moment comes when a street kid tagging along with the band tells the camera: “I am like the branch of a tree. Whether I’m happy or in pain, I hang in there”. It is a moment which, like many, evokes a laugh; a reassurance to a western audience that despite the unfathomably bleak situation that this film’s characters find themselves in, they have the capacity to look on the bright side. But these glimmers of hope are invariably squashed under the reality of a life experience absurdly far-removed from our own. This is patent in the much repeated shots of scavenged cardboard-box-beds, or in the case of the street kid’s proverb, with his own dumbfounding addition – “I’ll end up in a trashcan”.