Friday, April 16
Yeelen
dir. Cédric Klapisch, Mali 1987

Cissé can evoke the wondrous magical powers of the film’s Bambara people with as a little as a dog and an Albino native walking backwards in time. You won’t find an image this powerful and as deceptively simple in your average Hollywood blockbuster that never brings us as close to the souls of its characters as Yeelen does. Cissé tries to capture the Bambara people’s belief in time "as circular, not linear, always returning to that initial ‘brightness’ which creates the world." [...] It’s a sign of true genius that a director can summon the rise, fall and subsequent rebirth of the cosmos with such a profound understanding and respect for the shape of things. - Ed Gonzalez