DRAMA BAMAKO (PG) 115min 0000
Written and directed by Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako (Waiting for Happiness, Life on Earth), Bamako provides a refreshing African variation on the conventional political drama. Set in the backyard of a house in the Malian city of Bamako, this parable follows a mock trial, in which the plaintiff is African civil society and the accused are Western financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. The ‘structural adjustment programmes’ imposed by these organisations, it’s argued, have crippled underdeveloped African countries, forced to slash spending on social services and to privatise their natural resources in order to service their debts. One of the prosecutors charges that five million African children will die needlessly in the next five years alone. As Mali’s ex-Culture Minister Aminata Traore maintains, despite being associated with poverty, ‘Africa is a victim of its wealth.’
In the hands of another director, Bamako might have become a dourly didactic exercise about the iniquities of globalization, but Sissako contrasts the formal proceedings with snapshots of everyday life: the marital break-up of a singer Mele (Aissa Maiga) and her husband Chaka (T iecoura Traore); a wedding; women dying clothes and drawing water; communal prayers; neighbours chatting; a fever-ridden child. Attractiver shot in warm tones by DOP Jacques Besse (Chechen Lullaby, Profit and Nothing But) and with impassioned contributions from the non- professional witnesses drawn from all sections of the population, there’s even time for executive producer Danny Glover to appear in a spoof spaghetti Western sequence. (Tom Dawson)
I Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh, Fri I I —-Thu I /" May.
COMEDY
DOCUMENTARY SCOTT WALKER: 30TH CENTURY MAN
(12A) 95min oeoo
‘Reach out you can t0uch it's true/He's not a shadow of shadows' l‘Boy Child'. 1969). At last. a decent film about the most enigmatic music star to have come out of pop's golden age. One third of the Walker Brothers. Jacques Brel obsessive, musical journeyman. Meltdown curator. recluse and all round progressive musical innovator Scott Walker speaks candidly about his life and works in this simply constructed but fascmating dOCumentaiy. Walker's many celebrity fans (including Damon Albarn, Dot Allison. Marc Almond. David Bowie. Jan/is Cocker. Brian Eno and Alison Goldfrapp) throw in their ten pence worth about everything from Walker's brilliant first four solo albums to his more avant garde recent works. It is. however. the fey and unassuming Walker who reveals (with the help of some excellent clip and rostrum work) that rumours of his death and madness have been greatly exaggerated.
Stephen Ciiiemaiiia Kijak's film also casts a particularly intelligent eye over the creative process that led to Walker's more challenging later albums. Climate of the Hunter. Tilt and The Drift (which he is recording in the studio at the time of this interyiewr
Kiiak's film is not showy but it is an edifying piece of closure for many of this great man's many fanatical followers. For those Wishing to learn more about Walker this is a good place to start. (Paul Dale)
I GFT. Glasgow. Fri I8— Thu 24 May.
MY BEST FRIEND (MON MEILLEUR AMI)
(12A) 94min 0..
Wants to be a Millionaire?
ne has recently bought at an auction.
The French director Patrice Leconte seems drawn to unusual pairings: think of Juliette Binoche's governor's Wife and Emir Kusturica's condemned prisoner in The Widow of Saint Pierre; Jean Rochefort retired teacher and Johnny Hallyday's bank-robber in The Man on the Train: or Michel Blanc's secretive tailor and Sandrine Bonnaire's spied-upon neighbour in Monsieur Hire. Here in this contemporary Parisian buddy mowe. he teams an arrogant. successful antiques dealer Francois (Daniel Auleuil) wrth a good-natured. trivia-spouting taxi driver Bruno (Dany Boon). who dreams of appearing on the French equivalent of Who
The premise is that Francois is challenged by his business associate Catherine (Julie Gayetl to provide a ‘meilleur ami' by the end of the month. If he fails in this task. Franc0is \Nl” have to hand over to her an exceptionally valuable Greek vase
Leconte has said in a recent interwew that he no longer wants to make 'serious movies'. and the naturalistically shot My Best Friend turns out to be an amiable if formulaic divertissement. It's at its most amusing in charting the materialistic Franc0is' hapless initial efforts to acquire a genuine pal. notably a disastrous attempt to look up a former childhood classmate. Yet. predictably. the odd couple pairing of Francois and Bruno allows both the protagonists to develop emotionally. although the credible performances of Auteuil and Boon do lend some substance to the characterisations. (Tom Dawson)
I GFT. Glasgow and Film/rouse, Edinburgh from Ffl I I May.
Name Hans Canosa
Born Holden. Massachusetts. USA in the 19708
Background Canosa's parents were fundamentalist Christians who believed that movies are the devil‘s work, so didn't see a film at the cinema until he was 17-years-old. On leaving home he was disinherited for attending Harvard College. He directed many plays and videos in college and attended New York University's graduate film program only to drop out when it proved too restrictive.
What’s he up to now? He's just made his split screen debut feature Conversations with Other Women starring Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart.
What he says about the film ‘The reason I made the film is because I lived a night very like this one. and Gabrielle Zevin’s script brought it all back for me. I think everyone has asked himself or herself the question, “What would yOu do if you had a second chance with someone you once loved?" If you haven't lived the story in this movie. you've imagined it. I believe even a film that experiments should tell a great story that people want to see.’
What he says about the split screen device ‘I wanted to do a two character film with a screen for each character. It seemed like a natural experiment to undertake. Although there have been many experiments in split screen. this is the first time that Split screen has been used primarily to juxtapose shot and reverse shot. I find the effect involves audiences more deeply into the emotional journey of the characters. The viewer is invited to act as an editor between the two performances. The split screen allows for so many uniquely cinematic moments. that telling this story would not be conceivable in any other form. I did think about Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage and Claude Lelouche’s Un homme et une femme while making the film.‘
Interesting fact Carter and Eckhart only had three days to learn 82 pages of dialogue on the film.
I Conversations With Other Women opens at Ci'newor/d Fienfrew Street, Glasgow <3 Cineworld Fountainpark, Edinburgh, from Fri 78 May.
l;‘- Pf. Ma; .‘iXY-V THE LIST 39