I’ve just watched a movie that I really liked, but it took me a while to digest it, though. It’s not that it’s a “difficult” film that you have to think a lot to understand, just the contrary, it’s so simple that it’s the kind of movies that never leave you and as time goes by you appreciate more and more. The movie is titled Dreams of Dust (Reves de Poussiere in the original language) and was directed by Laurent Salgues. The story is simple: a man from Niger goes to find work at a gold mine in Burkina Faso; the job is hard, dangerous, and they don’t pay you much to risk your life.
The movie has little dialogue, the story is open and full of unknowns that you can only guess the answers, but you can relate to the characters, suffer with them, and understand a lot about Africa in general.
Because even when the movie was filmed in Burkina Faso and represents something that happened there (and maybe is still happening) you can see that the struggle of those men and women is the same than the rest of the people in the continent.
In this case, these men have to go down long tunnels under the earth only armed with a couple of flashlights, a hammer and a piece of cloth, to break pieces of rock to bring back to the surface to then break into pieces hoping to find some gold.
Their lives are worthless, and they know it, they are just hiding from a past that we don’t know, or maybe running away from a present that doesn’t have much to offer. There is little hope, and not much to do about it.
The movie is sad, no doubt about it, but it reflects so well how millions of people are just surviving in Africa; it can be in the gold mines of Burkina Faso, or the streets of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The director certainly knows the subject very well.
Don’t expect to find a movie full of action, adventure or dialogue; the pace is slow but you can’t stop watching it. Nothing is fully explained and the script is open, but if you like movies that make you think, this one is for you.
The photography is amazing, you can even breathe the dust, feel the sand and the weight of the rocks on the main character’s shoulders.
The actors are great, specially Makena Diop, who plays the Mocktar, a farmer from Niger, and he shows very well the quiet and reflective personality of the African people.
The movie is in French with English subtitles, the French dialogue adds an extra pleasure to the viewing.
Click here to watch the trailer.
AliciA
3 users commented in " Movies about Africa: Dreams of Dust "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback[...] carry such a task and in a way it will become for him a journey of self discovery. Again, like in Dreams of Dust, the story moves slowly with plenty of pauses to think. The dry and dusty landscape with its ochre [...]
I saw Dreams of Dust. It was a brilliant film. The lensing and landscapes reminded of the virtuoso opening of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
I object to comments like the review above that speak of “the reflective personality of the African people”, or how the story in the film is somehow the story of all people in Africa. This is no more true than “The Grapes of Wrath” was the story of all people in Canada, the US and all of South America. Africa is not a country, or a cause. It is a huge continent of 53 countries. It is meaningless to speak of Africa as though it is one place. There is a greater diversity of peoples, cultures, languages, environments and situations in Africa than anywhere else on the planet. There is less of the thing called and “African personality” as there is a single common personality type in Russia, China, Indonesia and India.
Such remarks betray a kind of racist view of “Africa” as a lumpen mass of undifferentiated “Africans”. To view them as uniformly “dignified” is no less racist than viewing “Africans” as uniformly pitiable. Africa has more human genetic diversity than any other area of this planet: meaning that there is no other place where you are more likely to find different personalities, biological traits, human forms and human nature. Any two random people on the African continent are likely to be more different than a Norwegian from a Chinese person - and may share more genetic traits in common with either one of these than each “African” with the other “African”.
Social and environmental conditions are just as diverse on that continent. I worked for 2 years in Lagos in a modern office, surrounded by air-conditioned offices. I bought fast-food and went to clubs and parties with other “Africans”. This was also “Africa”.
There are many who suffer the fate of those depicted in this film. Desperation, destitution, redemption and deprivation can be found mere blocks from the U.S. White House - or in the “heart of darkest Africa”.
I respect your opinion, but I never said that “all Africans are the same”, to imply that from my review of the movie is quite a stretch…
Unfortunately I haven’t seen any continent that suffers from the same kind of problems in each and every country of it, and in each and every ethnicity as Africa. That’s what I meant as “Africa” and actually that’s what MANY Africans said to me.
Where you born in Africa? It looks like you were just “visiting” the continent and living the privileged life of a few… lucky you. I come from a third world country too, and I know what I’m talking about. I’m sorry, but the “good life” of certain cities IS NOT the standard of “Africa”, I’m glad you enjoyed the parties, the gym, and the fast food but that’s far from the main reality of “African” countries and “African” people, and sure many other parts of the world, but in this case I’m just reviewing a movie from “Africa” and not South America, but sure I could talk a lot about that part of the world too since I also lived the life of the “Sudacas”, very similar to those of the “Africans”.
I could go on forever, but what’s the point, you will never get it. Sure you live in “a wonderful world” of diversity and equality. Good for you!
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