Aya de Yopougon

I loved this movie. Although I saw it with subtitles, I could understand a lot of the dialog with my High School level French. What I loved most about it was that it's a movie about African folks representing a time and a place. It's the 1970's after all - most people, even in the U.S., were not that progressive about women's roles, which is the central theme of this film. Yet, the storyline is critical of the roles merely by revealing the characters as they are. The sexism of the men, for example, is countered by some fierce come backs from the women as when they are harassed by the men in the streets who see it as a sport. The best thing about this film for me though, it's not so much the storyline but the beauty of Africa, specifically the Cote Ivoire as drawn by the artist. It reveals a view of Africa so different that what we are seeing 24/7. As someone who also grew up in a tropical, developing country, some of the scenes are familiar such as the homes built close together, and the extended families all living in one home. But make no mistake, this film is about an African country and it's delightful. The people are beautifully drawn and show an array of faces, just like in real life - young, old, beautiful, not so beautiful, men, women, children. And the music is wonderful including some Afro-Cuban old tunes which were familiar to me. I hope this film gets a wider audience - I only saw it as part of a festival of French language film. It was only one showing and the audience was sparse. But everyone that was there loved it as I could tell by the reactions. Kudos to the authors of the graphic novels and the filmmakers. I hope to see more of Aya's adventures.