This is, no doubt, one of the greatest masterpieces of cinema I have ever seen. It's certainly not your typical entertainment-focused movie, but if you are looking for something beautiful, poetic, artistic, and innovative? This movie is for you.
The camera work, the nonlinearity of the plot, the montage, and pretty much everything else here is done with mastery.
I have recently realized that I know near to nothing about African cinema and there are many obvious and non-obvious reasons for that, but the main one is just how neglectful the Western societies have been towards African history and culture in general. It is past time we give them the spotlight they deserve. This movie and Touki-Bouki are excellent examples of such high quality cinema that certainly deserve to be in those BFI, AFI, Sight and Sound top 100 movie lists - Touki-Bouki actually made it to one of them (at the bottom).
Plot summary
A native of Mauritania is delighted when he is chosen to work in Paris. Hoping to parlay the experience into a better life for himself, he eagerly prepares for his departure from his native land. Although an educated man, he has extreme difficulty finding work and an apartment. He sees racial inequity as blacks are relegated to manual labor while less skilled whites are given preferential treatment. A dinner with a liberal white friend even reveals a continuing attitude of colonization towards third world countries. The disappointed man runs off to the woods where he hears the far off cry of the jungle drums calling him home from a cold and indifferent land.
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Incomparable masterpiece
A film made in 1970 still relevant in 2017!
I saw this as part of the BFI film festival in October 2017 in London. I was curious because it featured immigration from Mauritania, a country I had visited decades before, to France, who were the colonialist rulers of Mauritania.
The film starts in a really interesting and visual manner with many of the first scenes framing whats to come in the rest of the movie.
The themes in the movie are as relevant now in 2017 as they were back in the 1960's/70's. The acting is acceptable, and one can only marvel at the innovative way the film is made on such a low budget.
I was laughing, crying, dismaying, basically this film makes the viewer go through a gamut of emotions.
I think this film should be essential viewing for anyone interested in colonialism, racism, immigration, and last but not least, African cinema.
A very good movie about racism
The director Med Hondo is mostly famous for be the official french translator of Eddy Murphy and Morgan Freeman. He also made few movies and "Soleil O" is his first movie.
It's a movie about racism against peoples from Africa in France during the sixties. We follow the story of a young black man who leave his country and goes to France because he his interested in French culture and want to find a work. Unfortunately, he will understand as he isn't welcomed because a lot of peoples are racist.
I really appreciated this movie because racism is a topical subject and this movie has been shot in 1967! A must see movie.