Yeelen

YEELEN    1987

(Brightness)

Directed by Souleymane Cissé

105 minutes

In Bambara and Fulah, with English subtitles

This film is a real trip... culturally, geographically and psychically. It is a wild journey of the mind and spirit coming from the African continent. It conjures up a world of its own aesthetics.... offering us a radically different mind-set. Malian director Souleymane Cissé embraces the Bambara people of Mali in the form of an ancient folktale, steering away from the narrow-minded ethnographic ways his country is usually represented by the West. Here we enter a pre-colonial world of myth and legend, a vast landscape of magic, sorcererers, prophecy, and shape-shifters - an entire cosmology.

This film follows an archetypal story of initiation and ritual, where a young man named Nianankoro has been disowned by his evil sorcerer father, and sets out on a journey of trials and challenges. His cursing father is hot on his trail, so young Nianankoro is always on the run while he encounters hunger, war, betrayal, animalistic-prophets, illusions and sexuality, In this dreamland the basis of 'reality' is mystical, following the laws of nature without morality or judgement. The landscapes and cinematography are astounding. One of the beautiful things about this movie is how it refuses to accept the universality of the Hollywood template, and follows its own path regardless of how viewers in other parts of the world will perceive it. The film stays foreign, and it documents a sovereign world we have no idea of. It is bright and magical, but also harsh. It's engaging, but it is also detached and foreign.

One of the fantastic aspects of cinema is that we can leave our prejudices behind and dive into the eyes of another culture. So let's try to get away from looking at the entire world through a western lens... maybe we would learn far more if we would just loosen up and embrace the diversity of the bigger picture.

DATUM EN TIJD Donderdag 6 april | Aanvang 20.30 uur | Zaal open 20.00 uur | Entree € 3,00 | Vrienden van Huis De Pinto gratis