A Screaming Man
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun | Chad | 2010.
119 min
Our work defines many of us. It offers us a means of not just being productive, but also gaining recognition and self worth in the process. Adam is no different. He values his job as a pool attendant at a Chad hotel, not only because he loves what he does (he was, in his youth, a swimming champion for Central Africa) but also because it qualifies him for the title of “Champ”, a title by which he is affectionately known to all. A dilemma springs up at Adam’s doorstep. At the start of the film, his only son Abdel, who works with him as an assistant at the pools, is asked to take over from his father.
Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s script is insightful in the way it lets us into these people’s lives. We literally follow father and son observing, as they do, the erosion of the status quo. Their hotel has new Chinese owners, determined to cut costs and make their investment more profitable. There is a civil war brewing, with rebels attacking government forces. The government has its own agenda — pay us for the war effort or draft one of your own. Adam only has a son, but no money. Think about this situation and reflect upon it. Adam feels humiliated, not because he loses his job of many years to his son, a son who he taught everything to, but perhaps more because he is demoted to be the hotel’s gate keeper, a job that’s less dignified and more physically demanding.
Mahamat Haroun is the first director from Chad to have won awards at both Cannes (this year for A Screaming Man) and at Venice (for 2006′s equally perceptive Daratt, which also played at the 2006 Dubai Film Festival). His films are set in his native country and convey to the outside world a realistic portrait of his countrymen and their plight. Despite this however, his themes are universal and the pain of his characters recognizable.
