The summer arts festival AFRICAS continued its exploration of African cultures on Friday with a tribute to Mahamat Saleh Haroun, a film director from Chad whose feature films "Bye Bye Africa" (1999), "Abouna" (2002) and "Daratt" (2006) have received international acclaim.
The Dartmouth Film Society paid tribute to Haroun in an evening that included the presention of the Dartmouth Film Award and a screening of his newest film, "Daratt" (2006).
The tribute began with a short and disastrous clip from Haroun's first feature, "Bye Bye Africa," a docu-drama starring Haroun, who plays a fictionalized version of himself, as he returns home following the death of his mother. Partially obscured subtitles prevented the clip's technical issues from being entirely ridiculous, but the audience spent most of the fifteen-minute segment in silence while techs attempted to fix the sound and fit the picture properly to the screen. Ironically, Haroun mentioned later that he would someday like to make a silent film.
In spite of initial technical setbacks, the segment shown from "Bye Bye Africa," eventually revealed a telling and humorous discussion between the filmmaker and his father about the purpose of cinema in Africa.
In the subsequent "Daratt," a young man named Atim travels to the city to exact revenge on his father's killer. The youth finds his mission difficult to complete, however, after he forms an unexpected bond with his target. Alhough he is initially brimming with righteous anger and a sense of duty, Atim is held back by his innate aversion to violence and the reluctant affection he develops for the killer, who has settled into a quiet baker's life.
Although this man now gives food to poor street children and "mixes love" into his bread, there is a constant sense of violence that occasionally escapes in outbursts of anger. Haroun heightens the aura of contained danger and passion that surrounds his central villian by excluding background music and using minimal dialogue. The viewer thus watches intently for the subtle physical cues that are too often lost in many films laden with special effects.
In "Daratt," the streamlined elegance of the script and the use of close camera angles further directs the audience's focus to the actors' interaction.
Haroun successfully uses a minimalist approach in creating the context of his characters' stories. Rather than fully showing the background of military conflict and insecurity, he reveals glimpses of the country's unrest -- snippets of radio broadcasts, sounds of gunfire followed by a street full of empty shoes -- contrasting of Atim's encounters with a belligerent soldier and a crippled soldier.
The focus on reality rather than theatricality makes "Daratt" a film that conveys the experience of life in a world largely unfamiliar to Western audiences, while engaging them in questions of duty, redemption, and filial love that transcend cultural contexts.
In this and other works, Haroun seeks to create memories through "corner films," using the people, sites and traditions of the cultures he is representing. Rather than professional actors, Haroun employs individuals without film training -- a fact that is completely astonishing given the subtlety and grace of the performances. It is a testament to the honesty of Haroun's work that such performances resonate not only with the people of the respective "corner," but also with people a continent away.
