Atlantics

A vast tower is going up on the coast of Dakar. The workers have not been paid for months. One night they all board a boat for Spain without telling anyone. Ada, left behind, is about to be married to someone else. Then strange things begin in the city: women wake at night with white eyes and speak in someone else's voice. The subject is not migration but those left behind collecting a debt. The dead workers come back, not for revenge but for their unpaid wages, and they take what they are owed from the developer. The supernatural element is used as an economic demand. The form is built on the sea. The ocean is in every scene: waves, horizon, night. Fatima Al Qadiri's score completes the image and the film stands somewhere between horror and lament. It is Mati Diop's first feature. She became the first Black woman to compete at Cannes with it and the film won the Grand Prix. Diop had approached the subject earlier in a short documentary of the same name; this can be read as its long form. Mame Bineta Sane plays Ada and Amadou Mbow the policeman; most of the cast are not professionals. Who it is for: viewers who like African cinema and films that mix genre. Who it is not for: anyone expecting explanation; the film never justifies the supernatural.