THE “WORLD’S” OPINION – NOT TO BE MISSED
In 1999, the first short film signed by Alain Gomis was entitled Tourbillons, and it is precisely this experience that his latest feature film invites us to, that of a great human tornado which whirls on itself and makes you dizzy. In addition to the reasons for exile linked to his exploration of Afro-descendant diasporas (L’Afrance, 2001; Andalucia, 2008), the 54-year-old Franco-Senegalese filmmaker also demonstrated his taste for ritual, with the funeral farewell tour of Aujourd’hui (2013) or the feverish singing tours of Félicité (2017). Dao, a long film lasting more than three hours, presented at the Berlinale in February, is this time entirely built on two intertwining ceremonies.
The film revolves around Gloria (Katy Correa), “a French woman of African origin, a working mother who lives within a community”, as she describes herself in the introduction. Two decisive events fall upon him. On the one hand, she marries her daughter Nour (D’Johé Kouadio) in the Paris suburbs. A year earlier, she went to a small village in Guinea-Bissau to attend her father’s funeral and perform the sacred rites. Using parallel editing, the film compares the two ceremonies, returning marriage to mourning, and vice versa, in a cycle that transcends space and time. “Dao”, the key term of Taoism, is this “perpetual and circular movement, which flows in all things and unites the world”, as recalled by a highlighted card.
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Originally published at Almouwatin.com
