BENAL & ADAMA

France/Senegal, 2023, 87 minutes, Colour.

Khady Maned, Mamadou Diallo, Bint Racine Sy.

Directed by Ramata-Toulaye Sy.

Writer-director of this film is from Paris with origins in Senegal. This is her first feature film after writing several films and directing a short film.

The setting is a remote village in Senegal, beautifully photographed, the details of the village, of the surrounding lakes landscapes, cattle grazing, then relentless drought and the deaths of the cattle.

The focus is on a young woman, Benal, who doesn’t want to live in the village, unable to relate well to others, except Adama whom she marries after the death of her husband, his older brother. She is looked at with suspicion by Adama’s mother, by a young girl who had been intended for Adama, by the rest of the people in the village.

The style of the film focuses on the characters, close-ups, long tableau, giving the audience a chance to look at the characters, try to empathise, try to understand.

This is a 21^st-century world but a remote village, some aspects of modern life but very much the traditions, steeped in Islam and the reading of the Koran, prayer and determining all events in the light of the interventions of Allah.

1. A story from Senegal, a remote village, actions, relationships, his lime and spirituality?
2. The location photography, the details of the village, the cattle in the fields, the drought, the houses under the sand, atmosphere? Musical score?
3. The focus on Benal, her age, place in the village, the arranged marriage, the death of her husband, marrying his brother, the past love for him and the possibility of escaping the village? Her being out of place in the village, the demands and expectations, expectations of Adama’s mother, her devotion to her husband, yet not wanting children, eager for the house, the digging away the sand, his description of the house in the interiors, the sun, the bedroom? Her hopes?
4. Her not fitting in, the capacity or not for loving others, for a Adama, being loved? Her manner with the other women, the clashes with her mother-in-law, the young girl who had hoped to marry Adama, isolated from the group? Yet her having to babysit, do the laundry, the work? Her resentments?
5. Adama, the dependence on his mother, his father the chief, his brother dying in the well, his lineage, his decision not to be chief, asserting this, supported by Benal? Not joining in the prayer, the drought, the death of the cattle, the men moving away, the elder and his talking to Adama, the linking of the drought with his behaviour and choice? The spirituality of a Lion and whatever Allah willed?
6. The drought, the vision of the cattle, collapsing and dying, the women cutting up the cow for the meat? Unrelenting? The village prayer?
7. Benal, her twin brother, their talking? The copies of the Koran? Reading and studying? The young boy and his play, Benal irritated with him?
8. The desperation, the demands on Adama, desperate digging in the sand? His response, sense of failure, talking with his mother, that he should be chief?
9. The style of the film, the many tableau sequences, enabling the audience to gaze at the characters and their situation, to empathise, to understand? Benal and her need for understanding, appreciation and love?