Waiting for Happiness

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.

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.

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.

"Heremakono" ("Waiting for Happiness") is a pure cinematic treat. A film in which the camera work, the minimal use of dialogue, the images themselves, are meant to tell the story, is what the Mauritanian-born, Russian-educated director, Abderrahmane Sissako, decided to grace the big screen with. We are made to share the day-to-day life of a little community from Nouadhibou, a small seaside village on the Mauritanian coast. It is a transit city, with predominantly temporary housing, called "heremakono", the Hassianyan for "waiting for happiness".

The film's charm is that we, the viewers, are forced to become temporary inhabitants. We learn disjointed information about the lives of the people we encounter in our way: Maata is the electrician who knows little about his job; Khatra is the orphaned boy who finds his shelter under Maata's protection; Abdallah is the son that decided to visit his mother before emigrating to Europe, frustrated by his rootless past; Nana is the local prostitute who lost a daughter from a failed relationship; Tchu is the corner's dealer of useless objects, trying to integrate in the distorted web of this deserted place. None find happiness in this exile before the voyage, and yet "maybe waiting is actually happiness" (Sissako).

Jacques Besse's remarkable cinematography and especially Oumou Sangare's soothing music are two shadows that are to hunt you for days after you've seen "Heremakono". A light bulb will never be only a light bulb, nor its light will ever identify with happiness. We all search for light, and only when we find it, then we switch it off, and only then do we gain peace. This seems to be the final message of "Waiting for Happiness".

Sissako, like Scorsese, does not consider time an enemy. He allows us enjoy the moment, its vibration, its numbness. And this is more laudable if we consider that most characters are played by non-professional actors. And what beautiful performances we are offered, especially from the young Khatra Ould Abdel Kader. A true talent! Beauty and peace…. What more should we want