Souleymane's story: a moment of cinema for shock (*****)

The philosopher maintained that the spectator should not be content with merely being passively receptive to what they see. The true spectator, the living spectator, is one who engages with the ritual of conventions proposed by the scene to the point of depersonalization, if necessary; to the point of confusing and changing their own circumstances (thus confusing and changing themselves) with the limited reality represented within the stage. The thinker we are talking about, Ortega y Gasset, was referring to theater, but the same could well be said of cinema, by definition the most immersive and hypnotic of the arts. We don't know if director Boris Lojkine has read Ortega. But it's as if he has. Despite appearances and the graphic title, The Story of Souleymane is not meant to be simply watched or listened to. The intention is for the film to be experienced and to be lived from within. The Story of Souleymane aims to be, transformed through a cinema conceived and executed to move, the story of the spectator himself. Framed within the limits of the screen, the protagonist's circumstances, despite their supposed remoteness, inevitably become the same as those of the viewer, those of a spectator who is literally forced to stop being a passive subject in the lives of others. And so on.

The starting point is, if you will, conventional. The idea is to follow as closely as possible a delivery man's two days on the streets of Paris. Lojkine, a director accustomed to films understood almost as exotic adventures, now takes refuge in an everyday, almost pedestrian story, bringing it closer to the unheard of, the savage, and, why not, the unbearably unjust. While he runs against the clock along the paths of the GPS, the Souleymane of the title, played by the colossal Abou Sangare, repeats his story over and over again, the story that must be endorsed and refuted by a public official. His life depends on it, and on whether he is granted asylum status thanks to it. And there, in the struggle to craft a true story that gives meaning to a life that is necessarily absurd, the future of the protagonist is at stake, and, more precisely, that of anyone, immigrant or not.

The camera ventures beyond simple naturalism, determined to convey the primal anguish of the declassed, the rejected, of a lonely man. And so it goes until the screen abandons the aseptic space of simple representation to transform into living matter. It sounds tremendous, and it is. The entire film is lived and suffered to the very limit of breath of a man on the edge of every precipice. And there it remains, living. Souleymane's story fights from the first second against the ritual of conventions proposed by the scene, or rather, makes it its own in a disproportionate and perfectly calculated effort to chisel the alien experience into the viewer's retina, yet suddenly so close. The film is lived, rather than simply seen, through each of the uncertainties, doubts, and wounds of its protagonist. And it does so in such a way, in an exercise of visceral, energetic, and feverish cinema, that there is no choice but to confuse and change, in an Ortega-like way, one's own circumstances with those of Souleymane.

At the very end, and without wishing to spoil anything, comes the interview. There, the non-professional actor, Abou Sangare, and the professional performer, Nina Meurisse, come face to face. Emigrant and civil servant. The story we've heard time and again in essay form is finally recited in the courtroom scene that will decide whether or not to grant him salvation. And right at that moment, everything changes; every second of the film transforms us. It's cinema seized by the shock of the moment. It's cinema that admits nothing but living spectators. Brutal and beautiful.

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Director : Boris Lojkine. Starring : Abou Sangare, Nina Meurisse, Younoussa Diallo, Amadou Bah. Running time : 92 minutes. Nationality : French.