Waiting For Happiness Movie Review:


This lyrical, enigmatic West African film captures the details of its place and time beautifully. It's a slice of life in Nouadhibou, a coastal town where the Sahara meets the Atlantic, and where travellers await transportation to the promised land. The young Abdallah (Mohamed) arrives to spend some time with his mother (Ahmeda) before heading off for Europe. He doesn't speak the local dialect so he just observes people around him.

The buzzing focal point of the village seems to be young orphan Khatra (Kader), an energetic boy working with an aging electrician (Abeid) who helps Abdallah learn some of the language while wiring up homes with light. We also meet Abdallah's seductive neighbour (Diakite), a traditional music teacher (Choueikh) and another young man (Dabo) who seems to foreshadow the fate in store for Abdallah.

All of this is observed by writer-director Sissako in minimalist style; this is a skilfully shot film, with startling images and a gentle pace that frequently comes to a full stop just to capture the rhythms of life in an earthbound purgatory where everyone's merely waiting for the next step. The vague, atmospheric style is mesmerising (and maybe sleep-inducing!), with constantly blowing sand and expanses of sea and desert stretching so far that it feels like a distant planet! Meanwhile the characters are vivid and fascinating, full of running jokes and clever sight gags. The small scenes tell us exactly what this life must be like--street vendors, a doctor's office, a karaoke bar, carefully orchestrated encounters between men and women and, most tellingly, an almost subliminal obsession with Western culture.

While the film feels random and meandering, strong themes echo from start to finish, mostly concerning the quietly shifting sands of tradition and culture, as well as the emotional cost of leaving home for an unknown, possibly hopeless future. Images of ships wrecked and rusting off the shore and on sandbars are powerfully foreboding.

And while the film as a whole is probably full of symbolism we can never understand, it still takes us with real artistry to a profoundly meaningful place.

Rich Cline

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