In Banel & Adama, writer-director Ramata-Toulaye Sy expresses the delirium that comes with love and the downfall that’s doomed to follow it. This fable-like film about ephemeral bliss takes shape in a remote village in Senegal, where gender expectations are particularly pronounced. Crucial to the story isn’t only the expiration date that comes with feverish infatuation and society’s disciplinary powers, but the lack of synchrony between lovers—that is, when one lover’s allegiance to the relationship never seems to last as long as the other’s.
Per local tradition, Banel (Khady Mane) marries her deceased husband’s younger brother, Adama (Mamadou Diallo). If she’s to be left in peace, Banel is expected to excel as a wife. Which means doing the laundry, always sitting gracefully, working alongside the other women, and getting pregnant before her mother-in-law (Binta Racine Sy) threatens to find Adama a second wife.
Per local tradition, Banel (Khady Mane) marries her deceased husband’s younger brother, Adama (Mamadou Diallo). If she’s to be left in peace, Banel is expected to excel as a wife. Which means doing the laundry, always sitting gracefully, working alongside the other women, and getting pregnant before her mother-in-law (Binta Racine Sy) threatens to find Adama a second wife.
- 6/3/2024
- by Diego Semerene
- Slant Magazine
There is a sultry elusiveness to Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s debut feature that makes it hard to articulate its subject or even its genre. Is this a riff on “Romeo & Juliet”, filtered through Senegalese village life? Or is it a sci-fi fable, with the mirage-like heat reflecting a slow descent into personal madness a la Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia”? “Banel & Adama” is a striking debut that puts Sy on the map as a purveyor of deceptively gorgeous visions that show flimsy desires at the mercy of the social, and literal, weather. A drought can suck dry the fiercest emotional bonds, so what use is romantic love when people are dying of heat?
We hear their names first, as intimate whispers repeat, “Banel and Adama,” and Dp Amine Berrada films dancing sunbeams that refract into mysterious shapes. We then see a piece of paper with their names written down together,...
We hear their names first, as intimate whispers repeat, “Banel and Adama,” and Dp Amine Berrada films dancing sunbeams that refract into mysterious shapes. We then see a piece of paper with their names written down together,...
- 5/21/2023
- by Sophie Monks Kaufman
- Indiewire
The interlinked names of the lovers have an unusual power in Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s haunting, halting “Banel & Adama.” They play over and over as a whispery lullaby on the soundtrack. They cover the sheets of paper on which Banel (Khady Mane) compulsively writes, like a schoolgirl practicing cursive on the name of her crush. There’s an innocence to it at the beginning, as though Banel, whose strange mind we mostly occupy, is simply delighting in the sound and shape of their togetherness. But that’s when “Banel & Adama” is a love story, and before it descends, a little too hesitantly but with a subtly seductive power nonetheless, into drought and madness and maybe, cosmic retribution. The sun-and-superstition-soaked tale of an African girl contending with fate and folk tradition has some precedent in Rungano Nyoni’s excellent “I Am Not a Witch.” But here, as the bright imagery...
- 5/20/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Sales banner Best Friend Forever has unveiled the teaser for Ramata Toulaye-Sy’s buzzed-about Senegalese drama “Banel & Adama,” which is the sole feature debut slated for the competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
The lushly lensed female emancipation drama, set to bow on May 20, takes place in a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
The film was shot in Pulaar language with a cast of local non-professional actors, including Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine Sy and Moussa Sow.
Toulaye-Sy said she wanted the film to tell a tragic love story that would be relatable to everyone. The helmer, who studied...
The lushly lensed female emancipation drama, set to bow on May 20, takes place in a remote village of Northern Senegal where Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart from their families. When Adama refuses his blood duty as future chief and informs the village council of his intentions, the whole community is disrupted and chaos ensues.
The film was shot in Pulaar language with a cast of local non-professional actors, including Khady Mane, Mamadou Diallo, Binta Racine Sy and Moussa Sow.
Toulaye-Sy said she wanted the film to tell a tragic love story that would be relatable to everyone. The helmer, who studied...
- 5/11/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
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