Review of Azali

Azali (2018)
5/10
Surviving in Accra
12 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I felt empty watching this, in the sense that there seemed to be no connectivity. I had subtitles but they didn't generate with some of the non-English probably because the languages were mixed together. I understand countries do that; that's not a problem but going from one scene to the next just seemed disconnected and that seemed to be one of the reasons why. Also, I've seen a lot of movies etc., but I don't know if I would call any of this 'acting'. It seemed as if everyone was just speaking AT each other rather than TO each other. Maybe it's a cultural thing, I don't know.

There's a lot of quietness in this. Like you're just looking at people, scenery etc., like it was dispersing art house type moments (I don't think it was, intentionally at least.) It's a story about a 14 year old girl surviving and trying to get back home. Everything moves so slowly. I was interested in the film but it just was teetering on boring me to death. It's too quiet. Even what supposedly is supposed to be exciting was subtle and quiet; such as the main girl finding out that she's going to be sold into slavery (sex trafficking, most likely) and the slaver comes up from behind her--and this other guy that the girl knows from elsewhere--and reaches for a gun in her purse and was so ominous but became so monotonous. It begins only to get interesting until the last 35 minutes of the film but then it twists into just the unbelievable. Amina was able to escape a life of slavery and perhaps sex trafficking only to end up surviving in Accra as a prostitute. That's irony for you. Of a city of over 2 million people she runs into a guy who sort of becomes her protector (who's also new to the city) oh, and after Amina finds her Uncle we find that her protector is her biological father who she's pregnant by! Oh, the twists this movie has and how pathetically entwined. I think they knew it was a boring movie so they added that taboo!

I will say the showing of the vast landscape was quite lovely to look at but other than that, I didn't really care for this film.
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