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Last Updated: May 30th, 2008 - 11:49:13 |
Maybe other filmmakers have attempted, through narrative, to subtly explain the impact of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on the fledgling post-colonial economies of Africa. But in “Bamako,” director-writer Abderrahmne Sissako just tells it like it is.
In a humble neighborhood courtyard in Bamako, the capital of Mali, these mighty world financial institutions are put on trial in a sort of people’s court. A score of “witnesses”— humble villagers to eloquent intellectuals — detail the deadly toll of policies that have saddled African countries with billions in debt, and have required their economies to be structured to serve the needs of United States and Europe. One attorney, arguing the case against the World Bank, reminds the audience that, for example, between 1992 and 1997, only 4 percent of Cameroon’s budget was used for basic services, such as health care, sanitation and education. In comparison, 36 percent of it was spent to on debt.
While this court action is underway, we are also drawn into the stories and lives of the courtyard’s residents, who casually walk through the court proceedings while going about their daily business. A baby pads around with a piece a paper and plays with a squeaky toy. While the main story among these residents involves a nightclub singer named Melé and her unemployed husband, Chaka, we also meet a woman who operates a fabric business, a police officer and a photographer who has become most interested in capturing images of the dead. These concurrent storylines, the court proceedings, home life and street life, contribute elements of world-stage drama, village soap opera and unexpected tragedy. Together, they make this film surprising, unpredictable and an example of truth being stranger than fiction. One of the stranger moments occurs when a family sits down to watch an American-styled Western, starring Danny Glover, titled, “Death in Timbuktu.”
It is also through this mix of action that Sissako explores the intricacy of African society and the complicity of its leaders in both maintaining the economic status quo and lining their own pockets through decades of corruption, nepotism and patronage. As we watch the courtyard guard and exact a “gift” or payoff from some of those wanting to enter, we watch a robbed society in turn robbing itself through a learned and desperate way of doing business.
Some of the action in “Bamako” can be difficult for an English-speaker to follow. Though spoken in French and Bambara, only the French is subtitled, so some of what the Malians are saying — especially the passionate soliloquy by an elder in court and Melé’s nightclub lyrics — cannot be understood. Despite these gray areas, the film brims with so much other life and action that, though I was curious about what I missed, I still felt the passion of the speaker and didn’t feel deprived. In “Bamako,” life is presented in stark relief. Issues such as illiteracy, lack of health care, emigration and the privatization of water all combine to create a picture of a society in a fight to survive. As one African man poignantly explains it: “They don’t just take our resources, our work and our money. They take our minds too. We have reached the last threshold of the human heartbeat.”
Iverem's review of "Bamako" first appeared on www.BET.com. Please support by pre-ordering Esther Iverem's We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006 (Thunder’s Mouth Press, April 2007)from Amazon.com or from your favorite bookseller!
“Bamako” will be opening in the following venues:
4/06/07 Cinema Arts Center, Huntington, N.Y.
4/13/07 Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit , MI
4/13/07 Cable Car Cinema, Providence, R.I.
4/20/07 The Ritz 5, Philadelphia , PA
4/20/07 Nickleodeon, Columbia, S.C.
5/04/07 The Loft, Tucson, Ariz.Z
5/11/07 The Screen at Moving Image Arts, Santa Fe, N.M.
5/11/07 Midtown Art Cinema, Atlanta , GA
5/23/07 BAM, Brooklyn, N.Y.
6/01/07 Shattuck (Clay), Berkeley, CA
6/01/07 Lumiere, San Francisco , CA
6/01/07 Nuart, Los Angeles , CA
6/01/07 Smith Rafael Film Center, Mill Valley , CA
6/15/07 E Street Cinema, Washington, D.C.
6/22/07 Dobie, Austin, TX
6/22/07 Starz Film Center, Denver , CO
7/06/07 Little Art Theater, Yellow Springs, OH
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