With raw realism and a moving central performance, Boris Lojkine delivers a quietly powerful immigrant tale.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Winner of a Jury and Best Actor Prize at Cannes and four Cesar Awards, French-language immigrant drama “Souleymane’s Story,” which is part of the Boston French Film Festival (showing at 7 p.m. on Aug. 15), may be yet another arthouse downer. But it is lifted to the clouds by the anguished courage and unflinching dignity of its lead performance by newcomer Abou Sangare.
Playing a fictionalized version of himself, Sangare, who was born in 2001 in Senko, Guinea, is known as Souleymane in the film. He is being coached for his upcoming asylum seeker application by another Guinean named Barry (a very good Alpha Oumar Sow) for a price. Souleymane is supposed to portray himself as a political exile to win over the interviewer. When we next see Souleymane, he is pedaling furiously on his bike in Paris traffic, delivering food. We can only wonder at his mastery of the mean streets of Paris. The work account on his phone demands a selfie for identification. He cannot provide it because it is not his account. Souleyman, who is Muslim, has no papers and is not allowed to work in France. The owner of the account, Emmanuel (Emmanuel Yovanie), allows Souleymane to use it in exchange for half his earnings. Souleymane must get Emmanuel to pose for the selfie. In another scene, Souleymane spars cheerfully with an Ivorian over football. One cannot help but be anxiously reminded of Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 Italian neorealist masterpiece “Bicycle Thieves.”
Souleymane speaks French (Guinea is a former French colony) and indigenous Fulah. He has little education. But he is a trained mechanic. He never orders anything more than a coffee or a cup of tea at cafes. He calls and registers for a bed for the night in a shelter every day and gets a bunk in Clignacourt. He must catch the last bus to get there in time for the bed, plus a meal and a shower. Like others, he washes clothes in one of the shelter’s sinks. He calls his girlfriend Kadiatou (Keita Dalo) back home only to learn that she is considering accepting a proposal from “an engineer.”
Sangare, who wears his hair in short dreadlocks that he brushes forward, has a medium build, high cheekbones, soulful eyes and a stoical disposition, no doubt earned in part on his journey through deserts and across seas from sub-Saharan West Africa to France, during which he was held hostage and tortured in Algeria. Still, during a confrontation with Emmanuel, after Souleymane is thrown down a flight of stairs and bloodily injured, he allows himself to cry, briefly. There is also occasional kindness. Even though he does not have all the money to pay for the documents Barry has for him. Barry gives him the documents anyway. As some have observed, award-winning director and co-writer Boris Lojkine works in the manner of the Dardenne brothers (“Rosetta”) of Belgium, shooting with available light and handheld cameras, using non-professional actors in many roles and examining the lower echelons of society. “Souleymane’s Story” also recalls, at times strikingly, Matteo Garrone’s great, Oscar-nominated 2023 mini-epic “Io Capitano” about two boys’ Homeric journey from Dakar to Europe. Everything that happens in “Souleymane’s Story, which Lojkine co-wrote with Delphine Agut (“Inshallah a Boy”), is heading implacably toward Souleymane’s interview, and everything depends upon it. As Souleymane’s OFPRA interviewer, Nina Meurisse is another burning light in this film’s relenting darkness.
‘Souleymane’s Story’
Rating: Not rated, profanity, violence, mature themes. (In French with English subtitles)
Cast: Abou Sangare, Alpha Oumar Sow, Nina Meurisse
Director: Boris Lojkine
Writers: Lojkine, Delphine Agout
Running time: 92 minutes
Where to watch: Friday, Aug 15, at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston French Film Festival and available digitally in September
Grade: A-
Boston Movie News 