Bamako (PG)
- Consumer Advice: Contains mild violence
- Run time: 1 hour 57 mins
- Language: French
- Genre: Drama
- Release date: 23rd February 2007
- Starring: Aissa Maiga, Maimouna Helene Diarra, Balla Habib Dembele
- Directed by: Abderrahmane Sissako
- Official Website: www.bamako-themovie.com
- Distributor: Artificial Eye
Plot Synopsis
‘BAMAKO’ is Abderrahmane Sissako’s poetic and deeply moving, yet highly entertaining film which brings sharply into relief the effects of globalisation on Africa: highlighting the pros and cons of the international community’s belated and ethically questionable treatment of debt-ridden countries.
A mock court filmed within the director Abderrahmane Sissako’s own father’s courtyard in Bamako (Mali) provides the setting. It is where Sissako grew up, with his large extended family and where he remembers the passionate discussions with his father about Africa.
At the court, the plaintiff is Africa and the defendant the World Bank, IMF and other international bodies, accused of causing or increasing Africa’s woes. But Sissako doesn’t just harangue the west –Danny Glover’s wonderful western parody in which he rides into town to take on a crew of cowboys who are wreaking havoc amongst the people of Africa was the director’s way of showing that Cowboys aren’t all white and that Africa too has to share the blame. “That is why the cowboy who shoots the ‘extraneous’ schoolteacher is African.” “A large portion of the African elite has never had the courage to act in favour of changing things because each person is only looking selfishly for their own interests.”
We see the poetry and drama played out not only in the court, but also immediately outside the walls of the courtyard, where the rich, colourful day- to- day life of the village continues as normal amongst the pleas and the testimonies. The courtyard is part of the house of Méle (Assïa Maïga) and her husband Chaka (Tiécoura Traoré). Méle is a bar singer and her husband is out of work – the couple is on the verge of breaking up…. They are both far too concerned with their own problems to have a desire to fight for Africa’s rights….
Elegant, powerful performances throughout are made all the more remarkable by the fact that the director filmed those taking part in the film unscripted, enabling them to voice real feelings: