From Mali to Nepal - Two films in International Competition at Film Festival

Two films at a glance  from the International Competition at Visions du Réel. Reviews by Emma Johnson

Intérieurs de Delta by Sylvain L’Espérance is showing at 13:30 today, Tuesday 20 April, at the Capitole 2 Fellini cinema and La Montée au Ciel by Stephane Breton will screen in the same theatre tonight at 20:00

Intérieurs de Delta, directed by Sylvain L’Espérance, is filmed in the area surrounding the dramatic Niger River in Mali. It documents how entwined the Bozo peoples’ live and livelihoods are with the river and surrounding nature, as well as recording the Bozos’ stories. The film opens with two local men talking and sitting in the shade against a clay wall - one is a fisherman who the director will follow, and one is a dugout canoe maker. As their tales pour forth, we quickly understand that Mali is stuck somewhere between the demands of the modern world and a traditional way of life.

The audience learns that the global economy has had its effects on this region of dusty earth and humble villages. With the rising costs of petrol and wood, the drop in the river water levels and the amount of fish, and a lack of education, the men lament how they have inherited a situation that cannot be undone nor improved upon. The fisherman speaks of the backbreaking labour required just to make ends meet, and this sense of futility is explored throughout the film.

Travelling along the river, we arrive at the fisherman’s family home, a small hut on the dry banks of the Niger. His wife, speaking to the camera, her modest belongings around her, repeats that the work of the Bozo is never finished. The audience soon sees her pounding grains; the rhythm of her work highlighting the relentless rhythm of her life.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking tale is when the fisherman’s oldest son sums up the situation. He states that his grandparents and parents have "left us nothing", and that each generation starts back at the same point in their struggle for subsistence living. We see the family bringing in the fishing nets, and the solitary fish that flaps in the net drives home the point that these people spend their waking hours trying to feed themselves, doing hard physical work from childhood to old age. Their lives are reminiscent of the Myth of Sisyphus, where the Greek hero is condemned to forever push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down upon arrival at the top.

In addition to capturing a way of life and the incredible and sometimes bleak surroundings, Espérance also beautifully films a powerful storm in the night sky. We see the family huddled in their small hut as lightning rips across the sky, once again victim to forces beyond their control.

La Montée au Ciel, directed by Stephane Breton opens with a close up on the incredible, weathered face of a Nepali shepherd, whose life is mapped out in the fine lines - this is fitting for a documentary that was made as part of a series called Visages du monde (Faces of the World) in memory of Nicolas Bouvier, the Swiss writer and traveller. The next shot shows this sole Nepali shepherd quietly smoking a cigarette under an umbrella amidst the green mountains. A feeling of solitude is instantly created, as is a reflective, meditative atmosphere.

The documentary then moves to a poor Brahman village, where all are bickering over the exact dimensions of their land. Oppressiveness is thick here as we see the worn faces, worn clothes, thick mud and ever-present flies. These conditions and the density of population concentrated in this one place, despite the enormous surrounding space available, create a desire to get away and head for the hills. Breton himself is never directly present in the documentary, leaving the villagers and the place to speak for themselves. This is total immersion, and beside the occasional looks at the camera from protagonists, the audience could almost forget the director is even there. After the screening, Breton told us that he wanted to show these people as they are and he does so very successfully. After the heated scenes in the village, the director follows two shepherds in their ascent up the mountain with their herds. Silence and solitude are built upon as we first see one of the shepherds slowly making chapatti in his room, and then later lying down to sleep on the mountain slopes as his herd grazes, sheltered from the rain only by a sheet of plastic. As the film moves up, it also moves to the interior. The ascent is a meditative trip, filled with a quiet spirituality, timelessness and pastoral solitude. It is quiet beautiful.