Waiting for Happiness

Living next to the sea in the white windy sand dunes, with Sahara desert all around.

Waiting for. Sat inside a listless life. Waiting that isn't procrastinating. Cus there's nothing waiting to be done.

If you don't mind waiting – if you actually prefer waiting as an antidote to too much busy doing – you'll like this film.

The wind whirling around that sand. Jan Gabarek saxophone comes out of car stereo. Surprising touch of contemporary modernity.

More like a vernacular documentary than a scripted drama. Watch it like you listen to music, like you were that young daughter singing along with her mother playing the kora.

Reminiscent of Iranian film The Day I became a Woman. The sea, sand, the white light, vivid cotton colours of clothes worn, those sheets flapped by the wind. Relationships – between old electrician and his young apprentice for example – having the symbolic tenderness of a timeless parable.

How many African films have i seen? Not many. Mauritania looks unfamiliar, feels unknown. Where is Mauritania anyway? A languid quiescence bleaches out of almost every scene. I can feel myself wanting to lie back and be as quiet as the characters are.

This is a proper film. By proper i mean owned by the director, belonging somewhere personal and close to heart. Not a made for cinema confection.

There's something beautiful – as well as truthful – about the compassionate integrity of this film.

While not for everyone (the antithesis of a Hollywood film), "Waiting For Happiness" is pure cinema at its finest, and one of the best African movies I have ever seen. Reminiscent of contemporary Iranian cinema," Sissako's poetic imagery resonates with a sense of place and describes the lives of those who inhabit it. While there is an absence of plot and scripted dialog, as well as no clear protagonist, the story is marked by the characterizations and tempo that reveal a community sandwiched between the ocean and the dessert; between ancient rituals and adaptations to modernity, fluctuating between hope and acceptance, life and death, always with patience and dignity. Full of quiet compassion, everything swept by the wind, "Waiting For Happiness," doesn't explain everything. Instead, it gives you an experience that is palpable for you to make sense of.

In this film's rather drifting narrative we join several characters including Adalah, a young man who doesn't fit in with his society and tends to read alone a lot and Khatra, a young boy in the care of an old man who uses him as an assistant when he works as an electrician. Their stories unfold with a pace that would make a glacier think that perhaps he should put the breaks on a little himself so as to keep up his reputation. Very little happens and it happens very slowly; some of it doesn't seem to be going anywhere while other bits of it seem to go somewhere but never anywhere that would suggest that it was a narrative that was driving it.

If this sounds a problem then that is because I felt that it was. I'd like to pretend that I am some arty type and that the drifting air to a film doesn't bother me but it did here because I felt I was missing something and perhaps I was. Not knowing anything of import about Mauritania I struggled to find a meaning or metaphor below the surface simply because I won't have been able to read it even if it was obvious to others. Without this it does still serve as an insight into the community where progress sits uneasily beside the daily grind of tradition and, although this isn't that well laid out, it does still provide some reason for keeping watching.

In some films improvisation is a good thing and has worked well but here it contributes to the feeling of a snapshot rather than a story. That said, the cast of almost all non-actors perform well and produce some natural and interesting performances. Mohamed's Adalah could have really done with more lines to flesh out his character because, try as he might, he doesn't make much of an impression. Kader is much better as Khatra, he makes an interesting character and is utterly convincing and enjoyable. The support cast have plenty of natural performances although they provide more of a sense of a community rather than interesting individuals. Sissako's direction is good and the film looks good – the bleak look matching the quiet and lowkey material and characters.

Overall this is a very slow film that goes nowhere and goes there pretty slowly. Without a knowledge of the country I cannot really comment on whether subtexts and such are present or if they work but it is still an interesting look at the community. The story is almost absent apart from small turns but if you can cope with the emptiness and rather bleak beauty of it then it is worth seeing – just don't expect a great deal from it.

While this may sound totally implausible to most, the film this most resembled, for me, was Claire Denis's recent release FRIDAY NIGHT (VENDREDI SOIR), a French-European film with little or no dialogue, but it is an impressionistic mosaic which the viewer can follow. Here, in a French-Mauritanian film that, culturally, more closely resembles an Iranian film, like THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN, it is literally an odyssey of images, with little to no narrative, only the images tell the story, and it ends up being an exhilarating experience, suitable for nearly all ages, that is a rare treat "outside" experimental film. This is one of the most tender, gentlest films I've ever seen, which relies in large degree, on the Malian West African music by Oumou Sangare which is featured prominently throughout, particularly at the finale which I found excruciatingly beautiful. A rare treat.

A brilliant film. It reminded me of Tokyo Story in many ways, which is recommendation by itself. This portrait of people who wait and loose- family and friends, a picture of goodbyes and staying by yours. Truly fascinating. Sissako is one of the best authors of our time. He created a certain feeling that has got nothing to do with your standard expectations. It goes from the people, from the place, and from their time. He created such tempo between them that you can know exactly how they feel or in which state they are- just from the atmosphere of their faces. They sing. They behave. They maintain. Some don't. It's different from Kim Ki Duk films. People were looking comparisons even in there, but I think it goes on completely different levels.