knoerer

This film, of course, is very deliberately theatrical, in mise-en-scène as well as acting - the director being one of the most famous theater authors and directors of Iran. Forget all preconceived notions of Iranian "new realism" (Kiarostami and the like) when watching any of Beyzaie's films. This is truly different and, interestingly, far more popular in the director's home country. Beyzaie in fact is one of the most refined stylist among filmmakers working today, planing and staging every scene with most meticulous care for every movement the camera and the actors make. It's a shame really that almost none of his work is visible in the Western world of cinema.

This is actually one of the best five Hollywood movies from 2002. The film Verhoeven always dreamed of making. Only superfluous thing about it: remnants of plot and morality. The rest is speed and noise, sex and violence. Great stuff, really.

The film has a pedagogical undertone - and it was financed by an official Senegal institution of education. There is an overtly didactic passage on the necessity of finding work, filmed as a kind of dream. There are, however, also some sumptuous photography and various scenes of Tauw and two of his friends walking through the streets of Dakar with a perfect music score underneath the pictures. These are the moments when this obvious tale turns into cinema.