THE AFRICAN CHILD
(L'ENFANT NOIR)
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 5.5 Alternative Scale: ** out of ****
France/Guinea, 1994 Running Length: 1:28 MPAA Classification: No MPAA Rating (Nothing Offensive) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Shown at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, 5/2/96, 5/4/96, 5/5/96, 5/12/96
Cast: Baba Camara, Madou Camara, Kouda Camara, Moussa Keita, Koumba Doumbouya, Yaya Traore Director: Laurent Chevalier Producer: Beatrice Korc Screenplay: Laurent Chevalier, freely adapted from the novel by Laye Camara Cinematography: Amar Arhab Music: Momo Wandel Soumah In French and Malinke with subtitles
Film maker Laurent Chevalier has chosen a unique, perhaps unprecedented, manner of adapting Laye Camara's 1953 autobiography, L'ENFANT NOIR. Using Camara's real-life family, Chevalier has re- created the key events of the novel, transposing the time to modern-day Africa. The story concerns how young Baba Camera adjusts to life in the city of Conakry after growing up in the small village of Kouroussa.
Actually, there are arguments why this film might have been better- suited to the documentary format (indeed, the voiceover and camera style are like those of a documentary). The narrative is stark and simple, with little or no dramatic content. Character development is minimal. Chevalier is more interested in presenting themes and ideas about change across Africa, culture shock, and the maturation of a boy in a changing world. Because of the weak dramatic structure, however, most of this film feels more like a treatise or an essay than a story. The most interesting aspect of THE AFRICAN CHILD is its insight into a culture that most viewers will be unfamiliar with.
Elements of THE AFRICAN CHILD are fascinating, but few of the best aspects have much to do with Baba's brush with adulthood. Idrissa Ouedraogo's film, THE CRY OF THE HEART, tells a similar story in a more satisfying fashion -- it has emotional depth to go along with its thematic strength. THE AFRICAN CHILD piques the intellectual centers of the mind, but rarely touches the heart. It works as an examination of the changing nature of life in Africa, and as a contrast between cities and underdeveloped villages, but those aims might have been accomplished more effectively in a different, and shorter, medium.
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net web: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
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