Arte France presents, Abdou Balde (Cheik), Babakar Silla (Omar), Mame Bineta Sane (Ada), Babakar Samba (Perf Ada), Astou Ndiaye (Mere Souleiman), Arame Fall Faye (Mere Ada), Aminata Kane (Fanta). Ibrahim Mbaye (Mustapha), Nicole Sougou (Dior), Mariama Gassama (Mariama) Director of Photography, Claire Mathon; Director, Mati Diop. © 2019
I love Atlantics. This macabre tale of young African immigrants crossing their way to Europe by sea, and all perished. Their ghosts come back to get even with those who caused their demise and amend with the loved ones they left behind. It is like The Old Man and the Sea, in which the sea plays a prominent character.
Like every sprawling and ever-developing city in Africa, most of the projects in Dakar, Senegal, are completed by the slave labor of the youths looking for work. They work from sunup to sundown with not enough pay or pay at all. Suleiman (Astou Ndiaye) and his friends are one of those. This city is notorious for withholding the meager workers’ compensation but compels them to work. The youths are tired of this. Hungry and hopeless, they seek refuge in chanting the Islamic slogan, “God is great!” You can see their hungry selves bundled up in the back of a battered pickup truck, leaving a Jobsite.
Knowing that there is no hope for them in their homelands, Souleiman and his friends decide to join millions of Africans. Long ago in history, in slavery, in adventure, and hope for better lives, Africans braved the awe-inspiring Atlantic Ocean. Few made it to the other side in Europe. But many have been swallowed by and perished in the same Ocean.
The young Suleiman in the same low-class Thiaroye neighborhood has a girlfriend, Ada (Arame Fall Faye), who he visits straight from the job site. You can see they are both in love with each other, as they kiss and snuggle up to each other, despite being as hungry and financially hard-up as Suleiman could be. In their irresistible urge to make love in an unfinished building, Security drives them from there. They part with the promise that they’ll see each other that evening. It never happened.
“The boys have left. Suleiman and others have left out to sea, to Europe.” Mariama (Khodia Fall) breaks the news to Ada. She doesn’t know how to receive this news. Her boyfriend has joined the chorus of immigrants who crossed the sea to Europe. Successfully making it to Europe has advantages, but gruesome stories out of that Ocean most of the time outweigh the benefits. Already, Ada is under tremendous pressure to marry a rich man’s son, Omar (Babakar Silla), who she doesn’t want for a husband at all. Ada is forced into the marriage against her will but never sleeps one night with Omar as a husband and wife.
A sudden mysterious and unexplained fire incident starts over the neighborhood, first in Ada’s marital immaculate bed. A fire smolders the middle of the mattress, where Ada and her husband sleep, and Ada deflowers. And the officials couldn’t come up with the cause of the fire, except that someone saw Suleiman in the neighborhood last night. Ada and Suleiman’s mother questioned about the fire incident. And the young detective thinks Ada has a clue. No, she doesn’t. But when a fire breaks out in the tower, suspicion moves from Ada, primarily when the police in charge of the case informed that a group of girls visits the tower owner.
Yes, Suleiman refuses to go into oblivion without having one last moment with Ada. He comes back to earth in the form of a ghost with whiteout pupils. A hair-raising spectacle! In the middle of the night, when life everywhere laid to rest, a group of young females with whiteout pupils solemnly walk across the street to the estate mogul’s house. They are here to reclaim the loss in wages the mogul refuses to pay them. They are never violent but only ask for the money he owed them and one last punishment, to dig their graves, so their souls could rest in peace.
Mati Diop’s movie tract is in the form of cinema verité. Pure French-style. It seems like an underfunded documentary of the sort. The project doesn’t show the face of a classic drama fit for movie theaters that one could pay hard-earned dollars to watch. You may think it, made for United Nations and public libraries. She is simply presenting a case to the world in documentary form. Human sufferings, cries, and wailings of youths who want out of their failed countries. And what occurs to them in the process. Suleiman perished at sea, and Ada’s parents forced her into an arranged marriage of her dislike.
Mati Diop’s macabre Atlantics did not embellish her story. Compare the movie to Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Scream (1997). Of course, we have seen so many such films. Mati didn’t make up her characters or use a flashy wardrobe and makeup. She presented ordinary youths dressed in rags, t-shirts, and jeans. And whiteout pupils. The one thing I admire in her presentation is the night shots when the dead girls come out. I don’t know about you, but I am scared of the night and the silence of the dead of the night. Quietness in the dead of night can be scary especially, when a group of the dead walk across the main thoroughfare, all in silence.
Without an article, the title, Atlantics, perceives disrespect for the mighty Atlantic Ocean, no. It is as if Mati Diop isn’t happy with the awe-inspiring sea that devours so many of her ancestors. No. And therefore, she christened her project with a bare name. No, not at all. You expect the kind of respect one graces a cemetery where they laid her ancestors in the fathomless belly of the Ocean. I say no. As she commented, she presents a literary case, painting the African youth issue with vibrant broad strokes.
The most significant and essential resources unequivocally accessible to writers, producers, and artists are bedtime stories told by grandma, grandpa, and uncles. Mati’s father married a French White. According to her, Atlantics stem from rudiments of stories her father used to tell about ghosts and spirits in Africa. The central location of Atlantics is the sacred Thiaroye neighborhood in Dakar, a fishing community. You may not know much about this, but this community lost 300 citizens in a protest once. All Senegalese soldiers had fought side-by-side with their French counterparts in World War II. They went wrong when they asked their French colonial masters for equal pay. Suppose these soldiers murdered were asking for equal pay. In that case, we must think the girls in Atlantics, who rose from the belly of the sea, have a right to come back to earth to the estate mogul for the pay he owed them.
Atlantics is her debut film project, propelling her to stardom and the world stage. Mati Diop is the first female black film director accepted by the Cannes Film Festival and managed to pull the Grand Prix. Indeed, she presents a “surreal dreamscape,” someone wrote, and a haunting story of a youthful romance cut short. She comes from a family of acclaimed film directors, Djibril Diop Mambety, Touki Bouki (1973), and Hyenas (1992). Mati acted in 35 Shots of Rum (2009) and Hermia & Helena (2016).