The Law

A great movie from Burkina Faso, this is a true African film, replete with sprawling landscapes, rustic rituals and hardened men, along with which it also manages to narrate a tale of love, family, incest and honor. Stylistically simple, the music is soothing on the ears and the camera frames sparkle with the director's masterful handling. It is a story that has been repeated a million times, but the magic of the setting and the freshness of the culture elevates it to a far greater level. The acting is great, as none of them are professionals, and the pace is deliberate and compelling. It all comes together to give a beautiful and natural picture of life in all its elegance and futility.

I saw this film within Sofia Film Festival in Bulgaria. It provided me with a rare chance of stepping aside from the weary problematism of civilization, into an area most immediate to human nature. Being outcast, murder, suicide and all the problems of existence are treated here with great simplicity. Life is taken as it comes and people are alien to dramatism. Overall serenity dominates this non-dramatic environment. A great musical setting contributes to the the naive perception of being and the inner peace with which the viewer is left. The film's artistic significance is probably in its allowing for constant self-finding.

Burkina Faso may not be the most prominent country in any world atlas, but the tiny African nation has an eloquent spokesperson in director Idrissa Ouedraogo, who combines elements of folk tale and tribal myth in a remote, contemporary setting not far removed in spirit from the American Wild West. The story outlines the tragic fate of two lovers separated by circumstance and village custom on the eve of their wedding, when the groom's father decides to marry the bride himself in his son's absence. Some (not unexpected) stilted acting from the non-professional cast (mostly relatives of the director) is balanced against the uncluttered dramatic appeal of the scenario, downplayed even after the protagonists are driven by the local code of honor into incest, murder, and suicide (even the inevitable violent ending is relatively quiet).

The deliberate pace requires some adjustment, but it's a pleasure to watch a film not automatically made with the home entertainment market in mind, and the spare but handsome imagery is perfectly matched to a subtle, expressive jazz score by Abdullah Ibrahim. In its own undemonstrative way the film marks the emergence of a world-class director, still hard at work in his own backyard but poised on the brink of wider recognition.

At the beginning I found this movie quite refreshing because it's not often that I watch an African movie, but I think the lack of a tradition in film-making is evident. With the exception of some interesting photography and lighting, everything is quite raw: acting, screenplay, plot. And despite the short runtime, the ending is quite sluggish.

Beyond that, there's a culture very hard to understand, where characters act in an almost absurd way, and that is why I found it interesting. A different time and land is depicted, with peculiar views on honor and family. I guess that when life expectancy is lower, the value of life is also lower.