QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM THE RED SEA
The story takes place in the early 1990s. Liberia is torn between four feuding factions, following the demise of its American descendent rulers and a brief period of rule by the Krahn people. Birahima is a 10-year-old Muslim living with his mother and grandma in the small rural village of Togobala, in neighbouring Guinea. One day, his mother suddenly dies in her sleep with her only son wrapped around her arms. The unexpected death is depicted with frankness and emotion, in a scene guaranteed to elicit a tear or two from most viewers. Charming cook Yacouba convinces the young boy to move to the warring nation, under the promise of riches and also finding his beloved auntie Mahan.
The young boy is lured by the prospect of owning Nike shoes, a baseball hat and a Kalashnikov. Yacouba and Birahima embark on a treacherous journey throughout the rainforest towards the dangerous yet promising Liberia. Their plans go terribly awry after they get kidnapped by Charles Taylor loyalists (the rebel leader would become Liberia’s president years later). Yacouba comforts his perplexed sidekick as they are tied naked with weapons pointed to their heads: “this is just part of the initiation ritual”. Soon Birahima learns that he has to take arms in order to fit in with the rebels and survive.
In this horrific environment, unsuspecting children are robbed of their youth and forced to grow up prematurely, violence is monetised, death is normalised, and the power struggle is fetishised. Kirk – of around the same age as our protagonist – witnessed his entire family being raped and mass murdered. Birahima plays along well. He doesn’t see himself as a victim. Instead, he presents himself as a trigger-happy child soldier. His self-confidence grows, turning him into an accidental warlord – a little bit like the Lil Ze character of Brazilian classic City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002).
Relying on a taut and effective duration of just 77 minutes, Allah is not Obliged boasts plush colours and vibrant sounds. The large-eyed characters are imbued with credible personalities and emotions, in an aesthetic vaguely reminiscent of manga. The exuberant green forest, the bright yellow soil, the blue skies and the red blood are deftly combined to excellent results. Some of the dream and allegorical sequences border on the psychedelic, without ever lapsing into gratuitous absurdity. The developments are told from the perspective of a child with a fertile imagination, presented in all of its terrifying magnificence.
The search to the elusive aunt eventually takes Birahima and Yacouba to equally turbulent Ivory Coast, just as the war of Liberia against Sierra Leone intensifies. The precise conjecture of the overlapping conflicts is impossible to establish. It becomes clear that Africa is a continent of random borders and clashing ambitions. The duo are prepared to change countries and allegiances without hesitation. These are not ideology-driven people. Instead, it is their survival instinct that guides them. They grasp the futility – and also the inevitability – of factionalism. This is a place where everything is “cadaverised”: the people, their families, their villages, their possessions, and their dreams. It all smells of death. The fact that the story opens with the apparent murder of Birahima and wraps up with an equally despondent denouement seems to confirm that this vicious cycle of violence is indeed inescapable.
The meaning of the film title is clarified in the very final sequence, adding a layer of spirituality and stoicism to the proceedings: “Allah is not abliged to be fair about all things that he does here on earth”. Allah is not Obliged is a fun, beautiful, terrifying and sobering affair.
Allah is Not Obliged just premiered in the 5th Red Sea International Film Festival. This international co-production of five countries (four European nations and Saudi Arabia) is based on the eponymous book by Ivorian novelist Ahmadou Kourouma.
