Direction: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Country: Chad
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Dry Season, 2006; A Screaming Man, 2010) shoots beautifully in a pleasantly aesthetic film that makes a clear and pertinent statement about the Chadian community, underscoring its authoritarian religious practices, intolerance, hypocrisy, and misogyny. This is a chilling, sober story that depicts the sacrifices of a single mother as well as the adversity and discrimination she is forced to endure in the suburbs of N’djamena.
Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane) has been a hard-working woman since she was repudiated by her family. Suddenly, she sees the curse that affected being replicated when her only 15-year-old daughter, Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio), becomes pregnant from rape. This leads her to another problem; the abortion is illegal in her Muslim country and punished with severe penalties.
The economical script builds reasonable tension, and the film moves assuredly from incident to incident with a simplicity in the storytelling that makes it seem old-fashioned, but winsomely so. It’s comforting to see women helping one another in a constant fight against the patriarchal system. Yet, some scenes are in need of revision and re-staging as the acting fluctuates. Nonetheless, the message is so strong that it’s nearly impossible to ignore it. You don’t have a cheery film in Lingui but one that gives us hope.
