Surreal love

atlantics

Atlantics begins in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, along the Atlantic coast, where a group of construction workers is denied wages for months. Frustrated and angry, they decide to leave Dakar by boat to search for better prospects in Spain. Among them is Souleiman (Ibrahima Traore), who is in love with Ada (Mame Bineta Sane). Although Ada loves him back, she is engaged to be married to the wealthy Omar (Babacar Sylla).

Life goes on as usual in Dakar after the departure of the workers, but some strange activities start taking place at night. Soon, it emerges that the spirits of the men who died at sea have returned to Dakar to exact revenge upon the building owner who refused to pay them.

Although Atlantics, directed by the French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop, begins as a romance set amid a backdrop of poverty, loneliness and class struggle, it moves beyond that when the mundane slides into the supernatural. It is a sad story which treats its sadness with a light touch and ends on a note of hope. The star of the show is Bineta Sane, whose nuanced performance as Ada is a pleasure to watch. Atlantics, which won the Cannes Grand Prix, is hauntingly beautiful, least of all because of its ghosts.

Atlantics (France, Senegal, Belgium, 2019)

TAGS