En attendant le bonheur

"Heremakono" ("Waiting for Happiness") is a pure cinematic treat. A film in which the camera work, the minimal use of dialogue, the images themselves, are meant to tell the story, is what the Mauritanian-born, Russian-educated director, Abderrahmane Sissako, decided to grace the big screen with. We are made to share the day-to-day life of a little community from Nouadhibou, a small seaside village on the Mauritanian coast. It is a transit city, with predominantly temporary housing, called "heremakono", the Hassianyan for "waiting for happiness".

The film's charm is that we, the viewers, are forced to become temporary inhabitants. We learn disjointed information about the lives of the people we encounter in our way: Maata is the electrician who knows little about his job; Khatra is the orphaned boy who finds his shelter under Maata's protection; Abdallah is the son that decided to visit his mother before emigrating to Europe, frustrated by his rootless past; Nana is the local prostitute who lost a daughter from a failed relationship; Tchu is the corner's dealer of useless objects, trying to integrate in the distorted web of this deserted place. None find happiness in this exile before the voyage, and yet "maybe waiting is actually happiness" (Sissako).

Jacques Besse's remarkable cinematography and especially Oumou Sangare's soothing music are two shadows that are to hunt you for days after you've seen "Heremakono". A light bulb will never be only a light bulb, nor its light will ever identify with happiness. We all search for light, and only when we find it, then we switch it off, and only then do we gain peace. This seems to be the final message of "Waiting for Happiness".

Sissako, like Scorsese, does not consider time an enemy. He allows us enjoy the moment, its vibration, its numbness. And this is more laudable if we consider that most characters are played by non-professional actors. And what beautiful performances we are offered, especially from the young Khatra Ould Abdel Kader. A true talent! Beauty and peace…. What more should we want

This is a quiet, unpretentious little film that should not be seen by those whose cinematic preferences run towards car-chases and Rambo-shoot'emups. It portrays life in a Mauretanian (Northwest African) small coastal town called Nouhadhibou. We meet an elderly electrician named Maata and his pre-teen apprentice Khadra (the star of the show); another subplot, less interesting in my view, tells the story of a son returning from overseas; he speaks only French and not the local Hassanya language, so he is condemned to remain an outsider.

You can predict whether you will like this film or not by whether or not you like recent Iranian films. As in such films, nothing particularly newsworthy ever happens in _En attendant le bonheur_ : people just go about the everyday business of living their lives, lives which are punctuated by the tranquil dailuy rituals of Islam. For me the charm of this film resides, as it does in much Iranian cinema, largely in the beauty of the images (bright blues and reds of the local fabrics against the white of the omnipresent sand dunes); and the sheer luxurious leisureliness of the pace (watch the scene where two interlocutors argue about whether X is in Tangiers or is Spain : Interlocutor 1 ; He's in Spain. (25 second pause). Interlocutor 2: He's in Tangier. Interlocutor 1 (40 second pause) : He's in Spain. Interlocutor 2 (60 second pause): he's in Tangier, etc., etc....)

Above all, what will stay in my mind is the beautiful relation between the young apprentice Khadra and the wizened old electrician Maata. Maata is, in fact, extremely crabby, and he's not much of an electrician. In one scene he attempts to string up a lightbulb in a woman's house ; it doesn't work, no matter what he tries. Later we see Matta and Khatra sitting outside the house ; Matta is smoking, and his dignified, weatherbeaten face shows no sign of emotion. Yet Khadra can tell his master is feeling bad ; he puts his arm around the old man's shoulders and tells him over and over again, with a repetitiousness Western customs would find intolerable, that everything's going to be all right. The other memorable aspect of the film : an old *griotte* or traditional singer, brilliantly gifted, teaches her craft to a girl of about twelve. Their singing, alternatively spine-tinglingly virtuoso and hoarsely off-key, punctuates the film to tremendous effect.

One is left with an impression of dignity, melancholy, fragility and imminent loss, marked by images and moments of striking beauty and tremendous gentleness, as when, around a nighttime fire, Matta tells the story of a long-lost friend who gave in to the temptations of sailing away to the mysterious lands of Spain and France, never to be heard from again ; as Khatra falls asleep, resting his head against the old man's chest.

Sounds corny ? Perhaps it is ; or perhaps the fact that we find it so tells us more about our own jaded cynicism than about the way of living of such resolutely non-Western countries. Recent Iranian films, which also like to use the viewpoint of children to show an innocent way of looking at life of which we cynical Westerners have long since ceased to be capable, are regularly lambasted by the oh-so-hip Parisian press : such films have no political consciousness, it is claimed ; no avant-garde cinematographic techniques, no pretentious imagery. Yet Sissako's film provides us with precious insight into the day-to-day life of the people of Mauretania, whom we might otherwise known only as statistics in some obscure war or famine. They show us a world wholly different from ours, which initially strikes us as appallingly boring and primitive, but soon has us wondering which of us - the Mauretanians or us inhabitants of Western late-capitalist "democracies" - are really living the more authentic, dignifed, and satisfying existence.

What a beautiful film to see. I lucked out when it came on satellite. It just ended. I was supposed to take a nap to do something later but I couldn't resist watching this film. The photography is wonderful. It's quiet but totally worth watching.

The storyline is universal to being in a family. To see such beautiful people presented in traditional clothing is fantastic. The traditional music is entrancing and used effectively throughout the film. The photography of women is luscious and loving. Scenes of women dancing and singing shine in my mind. The director is top of the line, a-number-one.

While this may sound totally implausible to most, the film this most resembled, for me, was Claire Denis's recent release FRIDAY NIGHT (VENDREDI SOIR), a French-European film with little or no dialogue, but it is an impressionistic mosaic which the viewer can follow. Here, in a French-Mauritanian film that, culturally, more closely resembles an Iranian film, like THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN, it is literally an odyssey of images, with little to no narrative, only the images tell the story, and it ends up being an exhilarating experience, suitable for nearly all ages, that is a rare treat "outside" experimental film. This is one of the most tender, gentlest films I've ever seen, which relies in large degree, on the Malian West African music by Oumou Sangare which is featured prominently throughout, particularly at the finale which I found excruciatingly beautiful. A rare treat.

While not for everyone (the antithesis of a Hollywood film), "Waiting For Happiness" is pure cinema at its finest, and one of the best African movies I have ever seen. Reminiscent of contemporary Iranian cinema," Sissako's poetic imagery resonates with a sense of place and describes the lives of those who inhabit it. While there is an absence of plot and scripted dialog, as well as no clear protagonist, the story is marked by the characterizations and tempo that reveal a community sandwiched between the ocean and the dessert; between ancient rituals and adaptations to modernity, fluctuating between hope and acceptance, life and death, always with patience and dignity. Full of quiet compassion, everything swept by the wind, "Waiting For Happiness," doesn't explain everything. Instead, it gives you an experience that is palpable for you to make sense of.