Augure

Saw this at the 2023 filmfestival Ghant (Belgium). This movie lacks a comprehensible and consistent story. Instead, it treats us on a series of beautiful scenes with folkloristic events, colorful dresses for the occasions, family traditions, and local customs, centering around superstition and witchcraft and how to deal with that. Bear in mind that witchcraft is a vehicle to explain everything that deviates from the norm. The best example is Koffi's bloody nose dripping on a baby, after which the baby is declared cursed, followed by a ritual to avert alleged ill effects (luckily without really harming Koffi, but it looked dangerous).

Nice scenes, a feast to watch (most of them), but it seems a bit artificially sequenced around the trip by Koffi with Clara, his pregnant white wife. They intend to pay respect to Koffi's family he did not see in many years, and to pay the dowry to his mother. In the beginning of the story, Clara is expecting a twin (due date 4 month to go). Some months later we see the couple carrying a black and a white child, giving rise to some dubious remarks from his uncle. Apparently, the fact that these two babies have different colors, carries a lot of implicit meanings (beyond our understanding, we can only guess). The obvious time jump four months ahead is not explained; there is no reason for them to have stayed that long, so I'm confused.

Clearly, not everyone in Koffi's family welcomes the couple, apparently something that can be explained from his past as a child, not wished by his mother who went at great length to get rid of the unborn baby. Apart from his youth, leaving Congo did not help to improve things (I think), and bringing a white pregnant woman with him did not do much good either. Family relationships are not easily restored merely by trying and despite good intentions. The turbulent past cannot be wiped out.

Omen offers a lot if you let it. Baloji brings a consistent care and engagement in his framework and direction that draws you in, even when you may be sort of circling around what exactly is this story trying to tell me. Because there are threads that unfurl hither and yon. At its heart there resonates a struggle in familial indentities that I presume most viewers can or may in one way or another draw parallels to their own lives. We all come from somewhere, and who we become and how can matter. Beyond the story the rich visuals ground the screen whether kinetic street theater in rhythmic brass and drums, pseudo wrestling or quiet family dinner table convo. Other sequences bring a lure of color, light and curiosity if it is a dream sequence, a memory or ? In the end Baloji transports us to places at once foreign and familiar with quiet confidence and engaging choices.

I was unprepared to see the film, but I love Africa in its actual art expressions. With some white and black friends we had the occasion to see the film and discuss it with Baloji himself. It impressed most of us. Our black friends recognised a lot of things that happened in their lives or in others' lives. Our white friends realized that there are other dimensions than the pure rational dimension. I Africa you had to accept that there will be always some mystic dimensions, unexplicable in western terms. Even every part was not immediately understood as part of the story, Baloyi tells us about African live that is at the crossways of past and present, tradition and modernity, dream and reality. So the film need a second vision. But we all were blasted by the beautiful photograpy. We all hope to see the next film of Baloji!

The film has an original tone in keeping with its setting in the Congo, as well as with its theme of beliefs and superstitions, which are a mixture of Christian superstitions and local tribal beliefs and superstitions. As usual, superstitions only impress those who believe, and the film seems artificially dramatized. Even if our character suffers greatly from it. But it has to be said that the script integrates all these elements perfectly. One regret as a viewer is that Marc Zinga's wife has no place in the second half of the film.

Nonetheless, the film has its original features, in particular the atmosphere, the settings of the places where it takes place in the Congo, and the various cultural elements it brings to the fore. It's worth noting that it's not an advertisement at all, but rather a repudiation of this country, where people don't seem to have any free will and, above all, are caught up in the shackles of superstition.

Nonetheless, the film has a real signature and hysteresis.

The screening of Augure that I attended was originally supposed to include a Q&A with director Baloji, which was cancelled because he was ultimately unavailable. This was unfortunate, since I found myself to be feeling particularly unsatisfied when the end credits started to roll. I reckon it could have been very interesting to hear the director talk about his film, to shed some light on some of the choices he made in its realization.

The film begins with a dream sequence, featuring a mystical figure roaming the desert and plenty of surreal imagery. I feel like I'm watching The Holy Mountain and I get excited, because this is what I was hoping to see. Based on what I had read about Augure (and on that opening scene), I was expecting a Jodorowsky-like riff on African folklore and mysticism, an intoxicating blend of surreal tableaus and visual symbolism. There are definitely some inspired dream sequences (like that prologue), which actually did really remind me specifically of Alejandro Jodorowsky's work (the mysticism, symbolism and colorful surrealism), but in spite of this I ultimately found the film to be disappointingly bound to reality by its frustrating allegiance to a conventional narrative style with a clear central plot (and even a clear B-plot).

I guess this is my main frustration with Augure: every time it dips its toe into the realm of the fantastic or the surreal, it's completely compelling, but those dream sequences are too few and far between and as a result, the already limited narrative threads that bind them are spread very thin. The film feels somehow too prosaic, whereas its real strength lies in Baloji's talent for visual poetry, especially given the subject matter that lends itself to this more unconventional way of storytelling (the cultural clash between traditional folklore/mysticism and rational modernism). It's almost like Baloji wanted to tell his story in his own original and visually rich style, but also did not want to scare away mainstream audiences too much by abandoning conventional narrative style.

When the title eventually appears on screen and the film is suddenly over, I'm taken quite aback, my reaction being more of a shrug ("was that it?") than that excited mixture of elation and bewilderment after just having witnessed something completely unique and original ("holy smokes, what did I just watch!?").

As I'm writing this, I'm starting to feel like this review may seem a bit harsh, but that is only because I had such high hopes for this film and effectively did see some glimpses of potential greatness from a talented new filmmaker with an own unique voice. There is definitely a lot of promise in Augure, so I'll be excited to see what Baloji does next. I hope he compromises even less and goes all-in on his creative strengths.