NYADFF: Where Are You Going Moshe?

Sharia law is not much fun, even for Muslims. Just ask the good citizens of the provincial Moroccan town of Bejjad. To keep their neighborhood bar open, they will resort to desperate measures, including protecting the town’s last Jewish resident in Hassan Benjelloun’s Where are You Going Moshe, which screened at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival.

It might not be as popular as Rick’s in Casablanca but the bar owned by the Frenchman Pierre does a good business. According to the local penal code, the sale of alcohol is expressly permitted to non-Muslims, so as long as there are Jews and Christians still living in Bejjad, the bar stays open. Unfortunately, the dying Pierre will just barely outlive the late King Mohammed V, who was considered the protector of Morocco’s Jewish population. With his death, the Jews of the newly independent state concluded it was time to get out while the getting was good. When the last one leaves Bejjad, the bar closes, which much distresses Mustapha, the prospective new owner.

However, there is one lone holdout. Though an ardent supporter of Israel, Shlomo’s heart and his music are in Bejjad, which serves Mustapha’s purposes. Rechristened Chez Shlomo, the last Jew in Bejjad holds court every night, playing his beloved oud, for his grateful Muslim friends. Of course, the religious authorities are less than thrilled with the relationship, leading to concerns for Shlomo’s safety.

Though very real, the film downplays Shlomo’s potential peril, preferring to keep the tone light. In fact, it is quite charming. It has much the same appeal of a film like The Band’s Visit, but might be even more commercial. Moshe takes the audience back to a gentler time, when Jews and Muslims could be friends and neighbors, without considering it any big deal. Obviously, that changed in Morocco. As a voiceover explains following the opening credits, the country’s Jewish population numbered over 300,000 in 1945, whereas now it is about one percent of that figure.

Actor and oud player Simon Elbaz brings true soul to the role of Shlomo. Like a graduating college student, he knows he has to move on, but cannot bear to leave the site of so many important memories. It is a richly human performance. Indeed, the entire ensemble cast credibly brings the town of Bejjad to life on the screen, under Benjelloun’s sensitive direction.

To his credit, Benjelloun treats his characters with respect, avoiding stereotypes altogether. It is encouraging to see such a movie produced in Morocco, but controversy surrounding the title somewhat tempers one’s optimism. Benjelloun’s first title, My Brother the Jew was evidently nixed by the Moroccan government. (Of course, our protagonist is named Shlomo. There is a Moshe, but he is a minor character, Bejjad’s barber, who leaves in the first wave of clandestine immigration. Maybe Moshe sounded less Jewish than Shlomo to the censors.)

Regardless of titles, Benjelloun’s film itself is wise and gentle. It tackles some tricky issues, but deftly maintains its light touch. Probably the best film of the festival, Moshe screened during the NYADFF’s special Night in Morocco. This year’s NYADFF concludes with special screenings today and Tuesday night.

NYADFF: Chaos

Fans of Egyptian popular cinema will always remember Youssef Chahine for directing Omar Sharif’s silver screen debut. For cineastes though, he is the auteur behind socially aware festival favorites, like Cairo Station. Completed by Khaled Youssef when ill-health forced Chahine to step down, Chaos (French trailer here) combines elements of his fêted issue films and the Egyptian melodramas that made Sharif a star. Screening tonight at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival’s Night in Egypt at Symphony Space, Chahine’s final film statement is in fact a harsh indictment of a corrupt Egyptian society.

Chaos begins and ends with a riot. In between, the crooked cop Hatem abuses his power and the general populace, extorting just about everyone he comes into contact with. After indiscriminately arresting people during the opening riot, the police are ordered by the new goody two-shoes DA to release all the accused. However, Hatem and his superiors have different plans for so-called troublemakers, illegally holding them incommunicado in a hidden basement cell.

Hatem, played with villainous gusto by Khaled Saleh, is not just venal, but also twisted in his personal life as well, stalking Nour, the pretty young school teacher living in his building. Of course, she is repulsed by the morally bankrupt policeman. The object of her unrequited love is the young DA, who happens to be the son of Nour’s headmistress. Unfortunately, he is engaged to a rich but shallow party girl, sort of an Egyptian Paris Hilton. When dealing with the romantic longings of its characters, Chaos approaches telenovela territory. However, back at the station house, the vibe is more Grand Guignol, with prisoners tortured in the dungeon as the prostitutes in the holding cell above put on a Bollywood-style show for the men watching through cracks in the wall.

Hatem acts with impunity, because his malfeasance amuses his superiors. Nour and her mother even seek help from the local Islamist party on the make. They promise big, but fail to deliver. Here Chahine seems to imply rampant public corruption in Egypt drives otherwise rational citizens to vote for radical Islamist parties. In a way, the film is so eager to indict Egyptian political corruption it lets the contemptible Hatem off the hook, as the product of sick society.

Somewhat uneven, Chaos is a big, angry morality play for the screen. It turns out Chahine had a particular talent for directing riot sequences. However, his attempts at popular melodrama at times feel a bit overwrought. While Chaos will probably not be considered one of the Chahine’s masterworks, it is certainly an interesting parting shot from the celebrated director. It screens tonight as part of the NYADFF, which continues through the weekend.

NYADFF: Return to Goree

Although it was a small supporting role, Youssou N’Dour showed tremendous screen presence portraying Oloudah Equiano in Amazing Grace. A charismatic performer with a powerful voice, N’Dour commands the screen as the subject of at least two recent documentaries: Chai Vasarhelyi’s I Bring What I Love, which played at this year’s Tornto Film Festival, and Pierre-Yves Borgeaud’s Youssou N’Dour: Return to Gorée (trailer here), which screens Thursday at the NYADFF, after a successful week long run this summer at the late, lamented Two Boots Pioneer Theatre. Gorée seems particularly appropriate for the Diaspora Festival, since it documents N’Dour’s pilgrimage through the music of the African Diaspora, as he leads an all-star group through jazz and gospel arrangements of his Senegalese songs.

The film starts and culminates at Gorée, the island home of the notorious slave-trading outpost off the coast of Senegal. It opens with the stirring lyrics of N’Dour’s anthem “Red Clay,” which speak directly to the African experience, making a fitting start for the musical odyssey to come. After securing the blessing of the curator of Gorée’s House of Slaves for his mission, N’Dour’s first rendezvous is with the French jazz pianist Moncef Genoud, who had previously collaborated with the vocalist on jazz arrangements of his material at a jazz festival. Together they perform with the Harmony Harmoneers at the Greater Israel Christian Fellowship church in Atlanta. However, N’Dour seems bizarrely alarmed to hear them sing their praise of Jesus in rehearsals—he wanted gospel, after all. Despite a bit of grumbling, the Harmoneers do agree to secularize their performance of “My Hope is in You” (the “you” formerly being Jesus for the gospel singers).

The next stop is New Orleans for a jazz set at Snug Harbor, with drummer Idris Muhammad and bassist James Cammack joining the rhythm section for the duration of the tour. In a pattern that repeats throughout the film, director Borgeaud films N’Dour and colleagues in a scorching rehearsal, and then moves on without showing the actual concert.

The next stop is New York for a session with vocalist Pyeng Threadgill (daughter of the often avant-garde Henry Threadgill) and harmonica player Gregoire Maret, who has played on high profile recordings with the likes of Cassandra Wilson, Pat Metheny, and Marcus Miller. We also hear a jazz-and-poetry collaboration with Amiri Baraka, who is relatively restrained in his militancy on that particular day, mercifully.

N’Dour and company make a final stopover in Luxemburg to add two more axes to the band, trumpeter Erni Hammes and Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel. As the musicians assemble in Dakar, the Harmoneers tour the House of Slaves and are moved to sing “Return to the Land of Gorée.” It is a scene that recalls Roberta Flack singing “Freedom Song” in a Ghanaian slave fortress during the Soul to Soul concert film (which was cut at her request from Rhino’s DVD/CD reissue).

When the final concert kicks off, it does sound like the band came together into a tight unit. Unfortunately, we do not hear the full group with the Harmoneers or Threadgill. In general though, N’Dour’s experiment sounds great. His songs translate well into a jazz context, helped by the presence of jazz musicians like Muhammad and Genoud who are well attuned to N’Dour’s original music.

With an interesting mix of well known musicians like N’Dour and Muhammad with European artists largely unfamiliar to American audiences, like trumpeter Hammes in particular, Gorée is definitely a cool jazz documentary. It screens Thursday at the Clearview 62nd Street Theatre, as part of the NYADFF.

NYADFF: Changing Faces

Though thought of as an Islamic country, studies estimate roughly forty percent of Nigeria’s population is Christian, so a Nigerian film with Christian themes is not such a contradiction in terms. Screening this afternoon at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival, Faruk Lasaki’s Changing Faces suggests personal angels and demons are not simply metaphorical, but wield a tangible influence on mortals which we cannot comprehend.

Marriage means little to Lola, the hedonistic journalist. Unmarried herself, she refuses to let a mere trifle like a wedding ring deter her from a promising sexual encounter. However, the devoutly Christian Dale Svenson takes marriage very seriously. He is even prim and proper with his own wife. Assigned to cover the painfully dull architectural conference he will address, the uptight Svenson catches her eye. Over the course of a week, Lola plays an elaborate game of sexual cat and mouse with her prey. Eventually, it indeed turns out that whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.

However, this time conquest comes with a price, both for Lola and Svenson. Faces posits a world in which sex not only occurs on a physical level, but on a spiritual level, involving the spirits people carry with them. By some fluke, Lola and Svenson swap their moral compasses during their night of passion. Now recklessly lecherous, Svenson recognizes something happened to him that night, which threatens to derail his marriage and career. On the wagon and living with integrity, Lola by contrast welcomes her new square life.

While Svenson resorts to a witch doctor’s services in a moment of desperation, Faces ultimately links salvation and faith. Lasaki’s debut narrative film, written by Yinka Ogun, is surprisingly overt in its Christian orientation. It is a morality tale in which morality matters. It suggests a life of rectitude is preferable to the ostensive pleasure of sin. However, like Christian films produced domestically, the production values are spotty and the acting is sometimes suspect. British actress Rachel Young fares the best as Lola, the former temptress. Unfortunately, as Svenson, her fellow countrymen, Marc Baylis comes across like an actor in a Christian film.

Still, in many ways Faces is an intriguing film. His scenes involving the unseen “angels” are particularly clever in their staging and Emmanuel Fagbure has a real screen presence as Lola’s leering supernatural companion. It also serves as an interesting reflection of contemporary Nigeria, in that the inter-racial relationships never raise eyebrows—at least for that specific reason. Though undercut by a weak lead, Faces suggests Lasaki might have some fascinating films in his future. It screens today at the Cowin Center and Monday at the Anthology Film Archives, as part of the NYADFF.

NYADFF: Panman

The drum has always held great spiritual significance beyond its formal music making role, particularly in the Caribbean. It has inspired artists as disparate as Duke Ellington and Vachel Lindsay. The drum’s elemental appeal is deeply felt by the protagonist of Panman, Rhythm of the Palms (trailer here), which screens as part of the NYADFF this weekend.

The drum in question for Panman is the steel pan drum, which originated in Trinidad, but spread throughout the Caribbean, including the Dutch Antilles. It is the instrument that has given meaning to Harry Daniel’s life, but as the film opens, his traditional style of music has fallen out of favor. He labors through a demeaning resort gig, before his deteriorating body collapses, which cues the extended flashback of his musical rise and fall, told through the narration of his estranged student Jacko.

Though fictional, Daniel’s career follows a path recognizable to those who have seen a lot of musical biographies. As a young man, his musical talent initially makes him a star, but his business concerns are damaged by his troubled brother’s incompetence. Along the way, he meets the right woman, but his obsessive dedication to his music leads him to neglect his family.

Oddly, there is not a lot of steel pan in Panman. It seems more interested in using the instrument as a symbol—representing both the traditional music losing popularity to modern electronic forms, and African culture, as opposed to the Dutch, which many on St. Maarten persist in identifying with. Fortunately, Panman is relatively restrained when addressing issues of cultural identity. (It is considered the first film to be produced by St. Maarten, though directed by the Dutch filmmaker Sander Burger.)

As a result, individual drama takes center stage in Panman, and to that end, screenwriter Ian Valz is quite convincing as Daniel, displaying both rage and nuance in his portrayal. Frankly, the entire cast holds up well, considering there are not a lot of musical interludes to leaven the script’s trials and tragedies.

Although Valz’s Daniel avoided the cliché of self-destructive substance abuse, there is much in his story arc which seems predictable. In a sense, the lack of faith shown in pan music by the filmmakers undercuts their lionization of Daniel. However, things never get irreparably bogged down in melodrama, and Panman does convey a good sense of life on St. Maarten. Highly watchable, it still might disappoint hardcore steel drum enthusiasts. It screens this Sunday and the following Sunday at the Anthology Films archives as part of the NYADFF.

NYADFF: As Old as My Tongue

Mark Twain’s classic quote: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” may have become something of a cliché, but Zanzibari vocalist Bi Kidude is certainly entitled to use it. While touring Europe, spurious rumors of her death produced a genuine outpouring of emotion throughout the Tanzanian archipelago. It was yet another chapter in Kidude’s complicated relationship with Zanzibari society, which Andy Jones explores in As Old as My Tongue (trailer here), a documentary profile of the singer screening at the New York African Diaspora Film Festival tomorrow.

Kidude is thought to have been born sometime around 1915, which would put her near the rather exclusive neighborhood of ninety-three. She still enjoys a nice beer and a good smoke, which is frowned upon for women by many of Zanzibar’s Islamists. Kidude also performs without the veil, which is particularly significant. Her musical inspiration and role model Siti binti Saad did in fact perform veiled. For Saad, simply performing in public and recording in India were enough of a challenge to established tradition.

Kidude is generally considered the greatest living representative of Taarab music, a style derived from Eastern African and Middle Eastern musical forms. Its instrumentation includes violins, ouds, and traditional percussion instruments, like the dumbek. Kidude still interprets the classic songs of Saad, but she also has a repertoire peculiarly her own, like the drinking song we hear at one point.

While she is celebrated abroad, attitudes in Zanzibar seem much more ambivalent. Many come to sponge off Kidude when she returns flush from a world tour, but when the money runs out, so do they. Concerned her music was not better appreciated in her native land, one of Kidude’s most enthusiast fans, Yusuf Aley Chuchu, launched his Heartbeat Studio with a session designed to reintroduce her to Zanzibar. He also explains a certain attitude prevalent among older Zanzibaris, including his mother, that Kidude should retire from music and spend more time at the mosque.

Although Jones did not capture any truly signal moments in Kidude’s career as they occurred, one could argue that at ninety-three years of age, give or take, any performance is noteworthy. Evidently, there is something to be said for drinking and smoking, because Jones often shows Kidude still maintaining a solid groove on hand-drum, despite her advanced age. To her enduring credit, Kidude also remains something of a non-conformist in Islamist Zanzibar, continuing to resist calls for her retirement.

Barely running over an hour, Tongue might be brief, but it gives audiences a solid introduction to Taarab in general and Kidude’s music in particular. Tongue also features some compelling music from its subject, even including “Done Changed My Way of Living,” a Taj Mahal track heard over the closing credits, which features Kidude and her frequent backing band, Culture Musical Club. Overall, Jones nicely balances the musical and the sociological in a very watchable documentary. It screens as part of the NYADFF on Friday at the Cowin Center and Saturday at the Anthology Film Archives.