Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Red-125 The Chadian film Daratt was shown in the U.S. with the title Dry Season (2006). It was written and directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun.This powerful movie begins with what clearly is a bitter blow for people who have suffered during Chad's long civil war. All war criminals are amnestied. There is no justice for people who have suffered horribly. The young protagonist, Atim (Ali Barkai) is given a pistol, and is told by his grandfather that now revenge is up to him. He must find and kill the man who killed Atim's father. Atim travels to the capital, N'Djamena. He finds the killer, Nassara (Youssouf Djaoro) and actually begins to work for him as a baker. Atim has ample opportunity to kill Nassara. However, just as Hamlet hesitates, Atim hesitates. Nassara has reformed. He begins each day by giving bread to poor children. He has married a beautiful young wife, who is pregnant. (The wife, Aicha, is portrayed by Aziza Hisseine.) Naturally, Atim falls in love with her. Atim hesitates, and we all wait to see what will happen next.As I wrote in my review of another film from Chad, Abouna, "This movie is worth seeing on its own merits. That fact that it's from Chad makes it even more important to view it. If I counted correctly, less than a dozen films have been made in Chad. The superb Dryden Theatre at The George Eastman Museum in Rochester is showing five of these movies as part of a Haroun retrospective. My compliments to the Dryden for giving us the opportunity to see these films on the large screen.Some of Haroun's films are available for the small screen, but some are not. Also, even with the resources of the Eastman Museum, a print of "Bye Bye Africa" couldn't be located. (If you know someone who has a print of that movie, please notify the Dryden Theatre.)"Daratt is a very powerful film, and I highly recommend it. It's unlikely that you'll be able to view it on the large screen, but it's available on DVD. Find it and see it.

johnnyboyz Dry Season is an interesting little pot-boiler of human emotion. It begins with a fair degree of hatred, before moulding into a film in which its lead must attain a certain respect. It then moulds further still into a tale of specific fondness two people have for one another, before concluding with a moral set piece complete with questions raising issues to do with honour, both to those you've known your whole life and to those you've come to know and respect in the short term. The development of the agents involved in Dry Season is fascinating and the power play going on between them carries a distinct sense of menace as we await the explosion of raw, human emotion as the act of revenge is carried out.But Dry Season is all about getting to that obligatory scene, the scene that completes the lead's goal; it's all about what happens prior to that event and the chance to engage in that event. As it happens, the film has its own clever little spin on that notion with a finale that is quite magnificent. The film begins in a small town in Chad, in which Atim (Barkai) and his grandfather overhear an announcement on the radio declaring the lack of action that will be taken against Civil War-time war criminals. From here, the film creates an interesting juxtaposition between backdrop and emotional drive for its lead; a state of war that caused the whole country to clash has already ended; but a state of war, or distinct act of aggression, within the nation between two persons, or families, is about to begin again.During the Civil War, Atim's father was killed by a man named Nassara (Djaoro); an individual living close by in a larger town than the one Atim currently inhabits. Armed, rather ritualistically, with his father's old gun; Atim travels to this place to kill Nassarsa. Initially, Dry Season is a genre piece. It's use, and slight spin, on the revenge arc as a drive for it's narrative is interesting as this young and lonely lead travels to a new and busier place to commit amoral acts on someone we have to presume is equally amoral. It represents a pushing of the film into a realm that makes it a lot more accessible than one might initially think. But, the film realises this, and rather than become a hard-boiled and cause and effect driven piece that sees the lead rampage his way through the new town in search for his ultimate goal, it places him with the antagonistic force of the piece early on, seeing them spend time together for the rest of the film's duration.When Atim first meets Nassara, one knows whom the other is but the other does not fit into the same scenario. It turns out Nassara is a holy man and a frequenter of a mosque. He is a man who runs a bakery and hands out bread to the children each morning in many-a notion of goodwill. He will, as will his pregnant wife, soon be a parent and whilst Atim is there purely to offer death by way of pistol, Nassara can only offer life in return by way of pieces of bread. For Atim, Nassara develops into a fatherly figure; a figure Atim never had because of said man. For Nassara, Atim becomes somewhat of a son-like figure; someone he can pass on his learnings to, employ in the bakery and generally keep in contact with by way of close proximity.As the two spend more and more time with each other, we begin to question Atim's drive. He is this close to his goal, but he holds back. Then we realise his father was killed before he was born, and that maybe the fact that specific personal connection between father and son was never there in the first place, it will blind Atim somewhat when it comes to carrying out an act of revenge on behalf of someone Atim, essentially, never even met. We begin to wonder if Atim subscribes to the belief retribution should be carried out on general principal and we doubt if he is still willing to follow through in his mission, rendering the film far more unpredictable than we first thought after twenty or so minutes, when familiar narrative arcs and genre seemed to be the order of the day. Atim's varying emotions act as one of the more interesting elements to the film. I was genuinely unconvinced if Atim would sway either way in terms of actually killing Nassara, and additionally spent some of the time wondering what payoff, indeed what new order, would unravel if Nassara was to remain alive.As the film enters its final third, there is a distinct shift in temperaments as these two characters shift away from their respective fatherly and son-like figures. The two seem to suddenly share a fair amount of homo-erotic scenes together, as they engage in long pauses with one another while, at other points, Nassara gazes back at Atim's sweaty body as he does his work. There is one instance in which Atim tries to apply something to the back of Nassara's head and they roll about a bit with one another on the ground before sharing a moment. The content aids in pushing the characters away from the relationship they already shared; and in one final act of might-be homo-eroticism, Atim invites Nassara back to where he initially lived so that he can be introduced to the rest of his family. But queer theory aside, Dry Season is a genuinely intriguing study of raw human emotion as opposing sides bond.

Paul Martin Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's story is remarkable in it's starkness of setting - the desert of Chad - and in the manner in which it unfolds. This is a two-hander in which there is very little dialogue - one can't talk and the other won't. This creates an almost surreal element to the film, where hatred seethes through silent glares.When the Chad Commission for Truth and Justice grants amnesty to some 200 war criminals, the elderly Gumar Abatcha gives his dead son's pistol to his orphaned grandson Atim and dispatches him to kill the murderer of Atim's father. Living far away, Nassara is a dangerous man who now ekes out a living as a baker, trying to forget his past. When Atim finds him, he insinuates himself into Nassara's life with the intent of exacting revenge. Dry Season would make an excellent companion film to Death and the Maiden (1994), Roman Polanski's thrilling film version of a play about political repression and revenge in Central America.I find it unfortunate that we have to wait for festivals to see films like this (I saw it at the Melbourne International Film Festival). It depicts a culture we know virtually nothing about, is visually stunning and was thoroughly engaging. An excellent film.

guy-bellinger The premise of this fable is as simple as it is powerful: in an African country torn by civil war, a sixteen-year-old orphan is asked by his blind grandfather to execute the man who killed his father. Of course, Atim, the young one, having been brought up along "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" lines, does not object in the least and, armed with the gun of his own father, hits the road to accomplish his mission. It does not take him long to trace Nassara, the war criminal in question. However the man is in no way the monster Atim expected to meet. On the contrary, Nassara has become a respectable married baker, whose young wife is pregnant. The ex-killer even goes to the mosque and gives alms to the poor children of his village. But Atim knows all too well that this good man once made HIM an orphan so the best thing to do is to offer his services to the baker who accepts to hire him as his apprentice. This way Atim will be able to gun him down easily when the appropriate time comes. But things do not go according to plan. Do they ever…?For, little by little, and very paradoxically indeed, a son-father relationship is born, and it becomes more and more impossible for Atim to kill Nassara .On the other hand, the young man does not want to betray his grandfather. You could think this is a no way out situation but Mahamat Saleh Haroun has imagined an amazing finale in which he enables his hero to square the circle: by pretending to execute Nassara in front of his grandfather who –remember – is blind. Satisfied with the two bangs he hears, the grandfather feels revenged while Atim has spared the life of the man he has learned to know.The moral of the fable is clear: forgive your enemies, try to live together in peace, this is the only way to unify your country, to make it become a democracy. Of course all this sounds a bit saintly, not to say goody-goody, but Haroun is neither wet nor soft-headed. If Nassara can be forgiven it is because he has become another man, and pardon constitutes a long and difficult process. Moreover, it is not always possible, for instance for the vile, arrogant, gun crazy soldier Atim meets in the "taxi brousse". When after being threatened and humiliated by him, the orphan meets him again, he beats him up (and maybe kills him) without being explicitly condemned by the writer/director.Mahamat Saleh Haroun is a courageous artist. Indeed it takes tremendous energy to manage to make a film in a poor country , ravaged by civil war for four decades, like Chad. Moreover he doesn't shy away from burning issues, for he doesn't rub everybody up the right way.As a filmmaker, he proves able, particularly good when it comes to directing the actors. I suppose the persons who act in this film are amateurs but you would never say so, convincing as they are.Haroun has indeed managed to make Ali Bacha Barkaï really impressive as the troubled gun-toting teenager, although he lets him be too invariably sulky to be perfect. Youssouf Djaoro, for his part, captures to perfection all the strengths and weaknesses of his character and deserves a best actor award, although I am pretty certain he will never get any.The only real flaw (but a serious one I am afraid) is the film's lazy rhythm. Too bad because, except during the last ten minutes, this viewer was more interested than captivated, more respectful than overcome by emotion. All the same "Daratt" is well worth seeing and is a good insight into a country most of the time ignored by the media. So feel free to see it.