When I confirmed the trailer of “Atlantics” in my class, my Gambian pupil knew immediately what it was about. That is greater than I might say after I had already been some 20-30 minutes into the movie. Mati Diop’s “Atlantics” begins within the building web site of an enormous constructing, simply within the nook of the body, looking of this world, ephemeral, about to vanish. The constructing, once we see it in all its glory, is so sci-fi trying, the truth is, that I double-checked whether or not it was an actual constructing. The web site Business Insider informs me that it’s, that “Senegal is constructing a $2 billion futuristic metropolis to assist reduce down on overcrowding in Dakar” and that it’s referred to as “Diamniadio,” and not The Tower of Sauron.
A documentary in regards to the lives of staff on this futuristic web site – futuristic certainly, it’s deliberate to be completed in 2035 – would have been attention-grabbing sufficient for me to look at. Glass and metal rising amid the pale orange mud, with photographs of cows passing by the development web site. And then the lifetime of the unpaid younger staff who’re constructing a future they may hardly be part of. The movie does go towards that territory, the employees ask for his or her cash, there’s a scuffle, however ultimately, all of them return dwelling in a truck, chanting a fantastic devotional music. Diop labored with nonprofessional actors on this movie, and this complete sequence looks like a stand-alone brief documentary.
Unfortunately, we’ve been visually skilled to count on violence, or worse, terrorism, once we are launched to offended Muslim younger males. The boy has no cash, is moved by spiritual music, the place else can this movie go? Then we see that he has a girlfriend, and then I turn into hopeful that this might not be a movie about radicalization in any case. We could also be going for the “younger individuals discover it troublesome to expertise love in a conservative Muslim society” mannequin. Some scenes to that impact do certainly happen as we see how the couple is acquired by society, how the lady is engaged to marry a a lot richer man. All the whereas, the music of the Wolof language accompanies the gorgeous gentle and colour scheme that Diop has gone for. A language I’m not in any respect accustomed to, I’m hypnotized by it and attempt to catch Arabic and French phrases right here and there. Disoriented by language, I’m additionally a bit disoriented by the best way Islam is practiced, notably the very fluid means during which the ladies put on their hijab.
This, then, is the second movie I’m watching, the pull of conventional society, younger individuals attempting to interrupt out of it, and many others. One night Ada manages to flee her bed room and goes to a seaside cafe, a really acquainted outlet from the lesser know seaside resorts of Turkey equivalent to Çanakkale. Yes, this would be the sequence during which she enjoys her freedoms one final time, and we, the viewers, will root for her. But no. Diop has different plans. When Ada enters the cafe, she sees that regardless of the loud music, no one is dancing. The ladies are lounging about trying depressed, considered one of them is passing a tissue to a different. Some of them try to make calls on their cell phones. And then the proprietor of the cafe approaches and tells Ada, “The boys are gone. They are gone to sea.” And that is what my Gambian pupil had understood without delay, from the very first moments within the trailer. This is about boys who exit to sea. Some make it to Europe, some do not. “Even vibrant college students,” my pupil says, “someday they’re there within the class, and the subsequent, they’re gone.” And that appears to be what hurts most for Ada and her girlfriends, that the boys (need to) do that in secret, with out correct goodbyes.
The damage and the vacancy left by the boys is made much more intense with Fatima al Qadiri’s haunting music. And the movie which stays inside typical genres even when exploring the “boys who exit to sea,” then, takes its last flip which does justice to the music. Firstly, Ada feels a presence haunting her as she goes about attempting to behave out the motions of a lady who’s about to get married. On the night time of the wedding, suspicious occasions disturb the proceedings, and we all know that Souleiman has “come again” to say Ada.
In probably the most evocative scenes I’ve seen shortly, we see Ada’s girlfriends rise from their beds one after the other and head for the home of the proprietor of the development web site the place all their boyfriends labored and misplaced their hope. They are just like the strolling useless, and it’s revealed quickly sufficient that on this case, that is greater than only a simile. The misplaced boys have discovered a option to declare the our bodies of their girlfriends and search justice by them. It is a credit score to the actors who play the ladies that we do consider that the boys communicate by them, that the justice they may go to on the wealthy man is the one acceptable justice there’s.
To me, the movie’s genius is in the best way that it performs with style expectations and the best way it manages to avoid lecturing the viewers in a setting that has been given to a lot posturing. It appears to counsel {that a} contact magic realism, or certainly good previous horror, is what we want with a purpose to escape the cul-de-sac of the “oppressed Muslim younger individuals” narrative. Diop guarantees us there’s one other means, and that this manner can be an unconventional, experimental and haunting one which makes use of all the potentialities of the medium of cinema.
