056 REVIEW
t’s heartbreaking how casually the lively, good-
humoured Souleiman (Ibrahima Traoré) makes
a decision that brings about the end of his young
life. Mati Diop’s stunning debut feature Atlantics
opens on a workers’ grievance at a building site in
Dakar, as a phallic glass-and-steel edifice looms
overhead. Souleiman and his colleagues have gone
three months without pay, and they’re absolutely not
going to allow that to roll over into a fourth. With a
sense of resigned futility, he doesn’t even kick up a
stink. Instead he just drifts off towards home and his
secret love Ada (Mame Bineta Sane), a young, strong
woman who is due to be married (against her wishes)
to a monied entrepreneur she barely knows.
In just a few snatched moments of screen time,
Diop teases a bountiful future for these two illicit
lovebirds. They caress and gently bicker while
surveying the breathtaking beauty of the sea which
connects them all the way to the horizon. They set
an evening date for their next meeting, but Ada,
delicately dolled up and ready for a night of passion,
discovers that her lover has taken to the high seas to
seek his fortune in Spain.
It’s at this point we realise that Ada is the film’s
central focus, not Souleiman, and a wistful drama
plays out in his absence. Ada is left to her fate,
which includes pondering the unlikely return of
her departed beau. But on her wedding night, the
bridal bed is set alight, and so the local constabulary
are called in to investigate. One inspector, who’s
been suffering from random bouts of ill health, is
convinced that Souleiman is back on the scene – a
suspicion confirmed by a mysterious text messageon Ada’s phone. At the point where Atlantics appears
set to double down on this Gothic-tinged romantic
mystery, set against a backdrop of poverty and
oppression, it swerves off into another, more enticing
direction. Diop not only handles this big tonal shift
with immense grace, she also manages to weave it
back into the fabric of her original tale, because she
obviously cares deeply about these people and their
stories.
Without giving too much away, a bold
supernatural element is introduced, and the plot
begins to address more widespread social ills,
particularly the sorry lot of wives and daughters in
a society still dominated by the patriarchy. There’s
also a suggestion that crony capitalism has a face,
and in Senegal it’s definitely not female. In the
film’s final act, bodies are separated from their
spirits and Diop suddenly has twice the number of
characters to rein in.
It’s a balancing act that culminates in a doleful,
but effectively poignant finale in which Ada
receives some kind of oblique closure. I hope it’s
a compliment to say that it’s very easy to see how
other, lesser directors could’ve fucked up a film like
this, whether through heavy stylisation, overuse
of music, or destabilising the careful overtures
towards genre and fantasy. But through a host of
careful choices – which relate to the production
design, the costume choices, the casting, the
gentle rhythm of the narrative and the decision
to not make if all look too pointedly artsy – Diop
manages to pull of something quite remarkable.
DAVID JENKINSI
Atlantics
Directed by
MATI DIOP
Starring
MAME BINETA SANE
AMADOU MBOW
IBRAHIMA TRAORÉ
Released
29 NOVEMBER
ANTICIPATION.
Love Mati Diop’s short films.
Keen to see how she handles a
feature.
ENJOYMENT.
Exceptional restraint and
precision on show. Diop is the
real deal.
IN RETROSPECT.
A tonal balancing act, perfectly
executed. An absolute peach of
a debut feature.