1. Senegal — Atlantics
2019, directed by Mati Diop
Atlantics is a ghost story and a romance, set in the hazy, beachfront backdrop of Dakar, Senegal’s capital and metropolis. The protagonist Ada is a young woman in a relationship with Souleiman, who departs early in the film, setting off on a dangerous voyage to Spain in (futile) hopes of better fortunes.
The first sequence of the film shows a bustling, dusty construction site with an ominous-looking, futuristic skyscraper going up. The contrast between the modern glass and steel structure and the arid, impoverished surroundings invokes what Dubai must have looked like 20 years ago. Souleiman is a construction worker at the skyscraper. After the unscrupulous boss won’t pay him and his fellow workers their earned wages, the young men crowd the back of a pickup truck to commute back into the city. In a potent long-take shot, the workers join together in singing, presumably out of solidarity and camaraderie, while Souleiman broods and fumes in silence.
This injustice sets forth the men’s decision to migrate to Spain by boat. Transitional shots of the pounding Atlantic Ocean waves on beaches hint at the slim likelihood of success for them. They leave behind girlfriends and spouses. Souleiman doesn’t tell Ada goodbye; she only learns that he’s gone when she goes to the oceanfront hang-out bar and the bartender tells her, “The boys are gone.” Soon after learning that the boat capsized at sea, Ada sees or senses Souleiman in the shadows around her and believes she is being haunted by his ghost. Eventually, we learn that the ghosts of these young men have indeed returned to possess the women they left behind and extract what they are owed from their former boss. Ada is betrothed to another Senegalese man, who is wealthy and works abroad in Europe, but she eventually leaves him, much to the chagrin and frustration of her family and friends. Souleiman, it turns out, has returned not to seek revenge, but to find Ada.
The plot will draw you in, but it is the film’s mood and imagery that impress. A sense of place seems to be paramount, so it is very fitting that I begin with this film in my tour. Blue waves pound ceaselessly against Dakar’s windswept, mostly empty beaches. Blue is the dominant color of the film; the blood red sun against the crashing blue waves is an indelible image. Another striking image are the white eyes of the possessed, contrasting against their black skin. The film explores or alludes to some heavy social themes, which are relevant to our contemporary world: class and inequality, capitalism and employment, and migration and the refugee crisis. For example, Ada’s fiancé gifts her a fancy new iPhone, telling her to ditch her old flip phone. After dumping the fiancé, and in defiance of him, and perhaps of modern capitalism, she sells the iPhone to a street vendor and buys a flip phone.
Atlantics is the directorial debut feature from Mati Diop, a French-Senegalese actor. It stars first-time actors, and they are mostly good and unflashy performances. I realized only after watching Atlantics that Mati Diop was in the 2012 movie Simon Killer, opposite Brady Corbet and directed by Antonio Campos. I saw it in theaters and did not care much for it. Mati Diop shined in her limited role, but that film walked the fine line between dark/experiential and sordid/pretentious, and ultimately fell into the latter for me. Brady Corbet recently directed Vox Lux starring Natalie Portman, which struck a similar chord, but fell into the former and I enjoyed it. In debuting with Atlantics, Mati Diop is a director to follow and to see what’s next for her.
I saw Atlantics on Netflix.
This is #1 in my World Tour of Cinema project. Read my introductory post here.
