Wednesday 22 June 2005

Abouna (2002)

If you want a viewing experience that will leave you truly miserable, this is the film for you.  The title which translates as "Our Father" is from Chad in Africa and traces the story of two young brothers whose father has deserted the family and whose mother is reduced to dumping them in a strict charity Koran school.  After failing to escape from the school in search of their father, they receive a poster from him (he is now in Morocco) of the sea which they have never seen and which I suppose represents some form of hope to them-- short-lived, as the younger brother dies after his medicine is stolen.  I'm not too worried about spoilers here.

The remaining brother eventually gets away, followed by a mute woman (five years his senior) who fancies him, and manages to steal his mother from an asylum where she had been committed.  At the end we are left with this rather impossible family unit.  Some people might label this life-affirming -- not me.

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