In director Abderrahmane Sissako's fierce and unforgettable piece of political art, the African nation puts economic globalisation on trial in a hot, dusty courtyard in Mali's capital Bamako.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2007
Bamako 2006
In director Abderrahmane Sissako’s fierce and unforgettable piece of political art, a trial against nothing less than economic globalisation unfolds in a hot, dusty, gnat-filled courtyard in Mali’s capital Bamako. The plaintiff in this symbolic tribunal is Africa itself, while the defendants are the World Bank, the IMF and their associates. Splendid, eloquent courtroom arguments are peppered with lyrical interludes of local life. A bar singer’s marriage breaks down; a man prepares to die.
“I have never seen a film quite like… Sissako’s seething, complicated and disarmingly beautiful investigation of Africa’s social, economic and human crises. The agony of Africa has been explored, and exploited, in several high-profile recent documentaries and fictional features, from God Grew Tired of Us… to Blood Diamond and The Constant Gardener. Bamako is something different: a work of cool intelligence and profound anger, a long, dense argument that is also a haunting visual poem.” — A.O. Scott, NY Times