Banel & Adama: Every frame of this mesmerising debut casts a spell

Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s magical debut – the Senegalese Oscar pick and the second film by an African woman to premiere in Cannes’ official competition – opens like a sandier Days of Heaven, as two teenagers lounge by a west African river. Banel and Adama are 18 and 19. Together they are a dreamy, sun-dappled snapshot of puppy love. She writes their names over and over while he tells her a mythical story about a local girl who was lured to her death by river sirens.

Banel (Khady Mane) was married to Adama’s brother until the brother fell down a well. In keeping with his village’s Islamic traditions, Adama (Mamadou Diallo) has taken Banel as a bride. Their bliss, however, is consistently interrupted by the rhythms and demands of community life. Banel, accordingly, hopes to move outside the village to a ruined settlement long ago consumed by the desert.

Together, they dig, at the expense of other responsibilities. Adama is next in line to be village chief. Instead he refuses the role and skips prayers at a moment when worsening drought kills crops, livestock and, eventually, people. Sy’s clever script is mediated through the headstrong Banel, who blazes on to the screen as an individual spark against a backdrop of dull duty, a rebel with a cause. There are, however, escalating hints of madness and cruelty. She kills lizards with a slingshot; she fights with her religious brother; she spits on dying flies.

Amine Berrada, the film’s cinematographer, frames her as a witchy outsider, staring wildly, draped among branches, while others toil together. Mane, a nonprofessional actor performing in the Pulaar dialect, has the mesmerising assuredness of a young Bette Davis.

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Strong folkloric echoes recall such Japanese classics as Kwaidan and the rising contemporary magic realism of Omar al-Bashir’s The Dam and “Fiery” Obasi’s Mami Wata. Sy’s film equally conjures the bold allegorical science fiction of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. Every beautiful frame casts a spell.

Banel & Adama is on limited release from Friday, March 15th