It's a modest film, if only in scale and apparent budget, about some of the greatest questions in life, like the existence of God, our capacity to see beyond our own vanity and the legacies of fathers, both blood and state.
A collective sense of psychological turmoil seems to weigh heavily on the entire country as much as Champ, reaching critical mass once chaos creeps into the city-leading to a quiet, climactic walk into darkness that earns the right to be called haunting.
Haroun’s tender but unsentimental regard for his characters allows his storytelling a natural gravitas thoroughly suited to the simultaneously unfolding private and national tragedies.
The first half-hour is as evocative as (and more specific than) Claire Denis' "White Material," a similarly broad treatment of post-colonial chaos. The rest, sadly, falls apart, but Haroun's formal skill confirms his continual promise.
50
Village VoiceNick Pinkerton
Village VoiceNick Pinkerton
The characterizations never comfortably accommodate Haroun's pat metaphor, though his stoic visual storytelling has an oblique gravity.