Icarus Films announced this past week that writer/director Abderrahmane Sissako’s 2006 Cannes Film Festival sensation, Bamako, has been digitally remastered and will be re-released on DVD on Jan. 12.
What has changed in the 14 years since Bamako was first released? Nothing. Well, if anything, Africa is even worse off than at the turn of this new century. Bamako is a reminder of that … perhaps, as a film testament, it is even more relevant today.
Sissako’s film is often described by critics as a “courtroom” drama, but as you immerse yourself into the proceedings, you begin to realize that it is a passion play; African Kaubki theatre. The trial is held in an outdoor courtyard, the defendants are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (a legacy of economist John Maynard Keyes), which began with good intentions after World War II, but like most bureaucracies they soldier on decade after decade without reform.
Of course, the actual heads of these two organizations are not there for the trail. It’s a show trail. And life goes on as the lawyers argue their case — we even visit kids watching an “African Western” on television (starring Danny Glover), watch a bride prepare for her wedding and passersby glance and wonder … and go on about their business.
The trial will end with a verdict, which carries no weight. It is simply an indictment of how the Western world has treated Africa as a “resource” for five centuries (and more), with nothing ever changing … just getting worse.
Filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako’s powerful Bamako is presented in French and Bambara with English subtitles.
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