What is initially so engaging and fascinating about Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's A Screaming Man, the Chadian director's fifth feature, is how deftly it skirts directly confronting the widespread civil war and utter bedlam that Chad has lived with for decades now. Set largely in a luxury hotel in the throes of privatization, the film unfolds like Shakesperean tragedy. It also suggests a drama masking the violent transitional forces of globalization, but in a way that feels deeply personal and strikingly original. Scripted by the filmmaker, A Screaming Man is at once far more lively and (perhaps inevitably) far less sustained than Haroun's previous feature, Dry Season.
Whereas that film saw the end of a 40-year civil war and the beginning of war crime tribunals, A Screaming Man begins with rebel forces and the Chadian army slaughtering one another on the dry, cracked African earth. Our view of these conflicts is relegated to a few harrowing images on television and reports on the radio that Adam (Youssouf Djaoro) keeps close to his ear while at work. Having sunk into a leisurely position as pool manager at the aforementioned hotel, Adam has little to complain about, and his happiness is clear by the way he joyfully shares slices of watermelon with his wife. His friends refer to him as "champion," as he was once the best swimmer in the country, but even this honor can't help him when management decides to give his job to Abdel (Diouc Koma), his son and subordinate. Demoted to the position of gatekeeper, Adam's home now falls silent with tension, despite Abdel's insistence that he has a life of his own to worry about and that he never asked for the promotion.
We never really find out if Abdel had suggested, or perhaps even nudged, management to give him the job, and neither do we know if Adam has a hand in Abdel suddenly being drafted into the army at first. Shot with an enigmatic elegance by Laurent Brunet, a smart DP who has collaborated with Christophe Honore, Amos Gitai, and Lodge Kerrigan amongst others, A Screaming Man's first half plays more towards the internal life of Haroun's characters and the complex relationship Adam has with his community. He is harassed about paying dues to the war effort against the rebels, a too-high price with his new lowered wages, but the film never steeps to blatant allegory and, for the moment, the often-victimized Chad seems like a setting for more than a heart-on-sleeve plea for peace.
Not long after Adam denies having money for the war effort, however, Abdel's girlfriend arrives on his doorstep with a bun in the oven and A Screaming Man takes a loathsome turn into conventional territory. Soon enough, the conflict has reached into Adam's neighborhood, with the rebels knocking down his door, and he takes the chance to rescue his son from a war hospital in Abeche, Haroun's birthplace. What begins as the personal informing the political goes turncoat on a dime; suddenly, the political overwhelms and becomes the driving force behind the personal.
A negligible hit at last year's Cannes, not to mention the first Chadian film to receive stateside release since Dry Season, A Screaming Man maintains a certain sense of dramatic gravity, which helps temper its predictable path towards a limp conclusion, but it's ultimately not enough. There are indeed some lovely late scenes, such as when Abdel's girlfriend listens to a recorded letter from Abdel and then breaks into cathartic song upon the tape's end. Here again we see the communal effect the war brings home and it stirs up deeply-held, complex emotions that lend nuance to both Abdel and his girlfriend. But most of the second half of the film sees Haroun trying to bring his small, allegorical story face to face with the images of war we see on CNN -- seemingly oblivious to the fact that his film's initial strength comes from the fact that it's not something you can see every day.
AKA Un homme qui crie
Whereas that film saw the end of a 40-year civil war and the beginning of war crime tribunals, A Screaming Man begins with rebel forces and the Chadian army slaughtering one another on the dry, cracked African earth. Our view of these conflicts is relegated to a few harrowing images on television and reports on the radio that Adam (Youssouf Djaoro) keeps close to his ear while at work. Having sunk into a leisurely position as pool manager at the aforementioned hotel, Adam has little to complain about, and his happiness is clear by the way he joyfully shares slices of watermelon with his wife. His friends refer to him as "champion," as he was once the best swimmer in the country, but even this honor can't help him when management decides to give his job to Abdel (Diouc Koma), his son and subordinate. Demoted to the position of gatekeeper, Adam's home now falls silent with tension, despite Abdel's insistence that he has a life of his own to worry about and that he never asked for the promotion.
We never really find out if Abdel had suggested, or perhaps even nudged, management to give him the job, and neither do we know if Adam has a hand in Abdel suddenly being drafted into the army at first. Shot with an enigmatic elegance by Laurent Brunet, a smart DP who has collaborated with Christophe Honore, Amos Gitai, and Lodge Kerrigan amongst others, A Screaming Man's first half plays more towards the internal life of Haroun's characters and the complex relationship Adam has with his community. He is harassed about paying dues to the war effort against the rebels, a too-high price with his new lowered wages, but the film never steeps to blatant allegory and, for the moment, the often-victimized Chad seems like a setting for more than a heart-on-sleeve plea for peace.
Not long after Adam denies having money for the war effort, however, Abdel's girlfriend arrives on his doorstep with a bun in the oven and A Screaming Man takes a loathsome turn into conventional territory. Soon enough, the conflict has reached into Adam's neighborhood, with the rebels knocking down his door, and he takes the chance to rescue his son from a war hospital in Abeche, Haroun's birthplace. What begins as the personal informing the political goes turncoat on a dime; suddenly, the political overwhelms and becomes the driving force behind the personal.
A negligible hit at last year's Cannes, not to mention the first Chadian film to receive stateside release since Dry Season, A Screaming Man maintains a certain sense of dramatic gravity, which helps temper its predictable path towards a limp conclusion, but it's ultimately not enough. There are indeed some lovely late scenes, such as when Abdel's girlfriend listens to a recorded letter from Abdel and then breaks into cathartic song upon the tape's end. Here again we see the communal effect the war brings home and it stirs up deeply-held, complex emotions that lend nuance to both Abdel and his girlfriend. But most of the second half of the film sees Haroun trying to bring his small, allegorical story face to face with the images of war we see on CNN -- seemingly oblivious to the fact that his film's initial strength comes from the fact that it's not something you can see every day.
AKA Un homme qui crie
