Banel & Adama

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Banel & Adama

2023

Banel e Adama

Directed by Ramata-Toulaye Sy

Chaos ensues shortly after a young man in a remote village in northern Senegal refuses to accept his role as the new village chief.

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Realkinoshit
Review by Realkinoshit ★★★ Liked 1

The color, the cinematography, the landscape... This film is incredibly beautiful 🤌

Dave G
Review by Dave G ★★★★½ Liked

TIFF 2023 Film 9

"It was the best of times, so they say."

What a stunningly beautiful film. The fact that this is a debut feature for Ramata-Toulaye Sy just feels absurd. This is easily the best looking film I have watched so far, sorry Miyazaki. A story of wanting to choose love over tradition and expectations, but at what cost? This is what I came to this festival for, films like this. Something I would likely never get a chance to see, at least not in theaters. Wonderful performances for the two leads. The story is simple but it does have some depth to it, especially as we begin to discover more about Banel and the implications behind everything she has done to be with Adama. This gets as big of a recommend as I can give. One of my favorites from this week so far. Worth watching for the beautiful cinematography alone.

anahit
Review by anahit ★★★★ Liked

please god let me never be this down bad for a man

Gemma G
Review by Gemma G ★★★★½ Liked

When the climate crisis interferes with your plans with your man. Strong Lady MacBeth energy, massive Malick vibes, a gripping novel for the eyes, the film version of a guttural femme growl.

Darren Carver-Balsiger
Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★ 2

Banel & Adama is a film of unfolding chaos. It's about love in a time of disaster, tangled together when decisions of the heart face consequences from nature. Banel & Adama is cinema of climate catastrophe, where the world dries up and people slowly perish. It is the story of fate, some of which the characters reject, primarily when it comes to their roles in society. Yet also fate becomes the answer to events, with climate change inevitable and a marriage made destined due to the death of another. Banel & Adama is dreamlike and complicated, with few characters yet a lot of uncertainty to events. It exists in a beautifully shot surreal space, filled with bright colours and shimmering skin. It's a stylish work that creates a distinct mood. This is cinema of the heart, wandering through ideas that cannot be escaped.

2024 Ranked

Julian (Seeking Film)
Review by Julian (Seeking Film) ★★★½ Liked

Well, it looks like we have another Stars at Noon situation on our hands here, folks! The overall reception for Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s directorial debut Banel & Adama has been surprisingly mixed given the hype around the film going into Cannes. And by hype, I mean a noted lack of hype; as the only directorial debut to make it into a competition lineup rife with borderline-geriatrics—and thus the first such film since the 2018 rendition of the festival—ears were perked to hear just what Thierry Frémaux saw in this one to give Sy an immediate jump to the top platform.

For many, that result has been too sparse for its own good, but Banel & Adama, to me at least, soars through the…

Ben Delgado
Review by Ben Delgado ★★★½ 1

Can someone please tell me the title of this movie? I think I missed it…

Avirup
Review by Avirup

Love suffocating under the weight of duty, tradition and mother nature..

Robert Daniels
Review by Robert Daniels ★★★½ Liked 1

In Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s transfixing Banel & Adama, a tragic, evocative love story, there are no villains. That sounds odd considering a murder occurs, drought and famine arise, and people are forced to perform roles that incite personal misery. But it’s true. Sy avoids taking a side in a film concerning a young presumptive chief of his Senegalese village forced to choose between the woman he loves and the duty to his kin and town (Banel & Adama is one of two African films playing at Cannes Film Festival consumed with that conflict, Baloji Tshiani’s Omen being the other).

And yet, even without an extremist position, her supernatural narrative is no less sharp, no less incisive or bold. Sy, who is the second…

Sade25
Review by Sade25 ★★★½ Liked 5

3 seconds in the movie, and I was already amazed by the cinematography and the camera work, the colors are bright and the shots are beautifull, especially the wind movements, so congratulations to Ramata

I liked those few moments of love de intimicy between Banel and Adama, the poetry and those silence too, it made me smile, but I need more, the movie felt empty sometimes, and made me feel like we didn't had the closure between them, and about the story Banel was telling Us, even though we know them and can understand them.
I really want to know how Adama becoming the chief of the village will precisely change their relationship, and how it would change him and…

Dave G
Review by Dave G ★★★★ Liked

Would love to get to watch this in a theater again someday because it is just a beautiful movie. I really hope it gets to a wider audience one day, it deserves it. Still crazy to me that this is a debut feature as well. Only $3 to rent on Amazon is all I'm saying.

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