A wealthy and arrogant man stuck in traffic. His blasé young wife trying to kill time. Three thugs involved in a fight with a band of gangsters. A duty-bound married couple struggling to make ends meet and their sickly daughter. Joël Haikali's short film unfolds in a Namibian town and follows eight individuals during eight hours of their lives. At one point the characters, who come from different backgrounds, all end up on level ground.
Try is told in a voice of a young male director visibly in love with a certain kind of cinema. In the case of Namibian director's second short (made after his 2010 feature film debut My Father's Son), the genres that seem to have inspired him are film noir and gangster films.
Like in most African cities, towns and villages, the wealthy inhabitants of Haikali's town are living side by side with the penniless. As a consequence the poor are suffering the daily humiliation of observing but never experiencing the perks of lifestyles they can only dream of, while the rich easily become targets of robbers intent on redistribution of wealth.
Joël Haikali offers a limited opportunity to get to know many of the characters other than through rough sketches of their current life situation, mainly informing us whether they are rich or poor. In addition inexplicable situations, like the police- woman who is called to a robbery scene and stops to scold a taxi driver for a minor transgression, add little to the unfolding action.
There is nothing wrong with applying the styles of other filmmakers, or strictly following the rules of a genre. Likewise nothing stops a playful filmmaker from referencing inspiring heroes and role models. In the case of Haikali's Try, the chase scene could have been cut straight from a gangster B-movie filmed with a shaky handheld camera. Similarly the semi-erotic encounter between the bored wife and the head-hug takes us right back to the era of the classic film noir through a sudden change in the film's rhythm, a well thought out wardrobe and choice of music.
Joël Haikali is an upcoming filmmaker who is still searching for a unique voice and who is having fun in the meantime mimicking the camera shots, gestures and manners of speech of his heroes. While Try might not be for everyone, many will find Haikali's homage pleasing.
Katarina Hedrén & Aderinsola Ajao
Article written during the Workshop "Bulletin Africiné" - Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), FESPACO 2013. Published in Africiné n°19 (Ouaga), Thursday 28th february, 2013, pp. 4 & 5.
This Bulletin is edited by the African Federation of Film Critics (AFFC, Dakar) with the support of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, Africultures, French Embassy in Senegal and Algeria, Goethe Institut in South Africa and Nigeria, Ministry of Culture (Tunisia), Institut Gabonais de l'Image et du Son (IGIS), Vanuit het Zuiden (Depuis le Sud) Association and Fespaco. It's written by journalists members of AFFC in attendance at Fespaco 2013, from 15 African countries.
Twitter: @KatarinaHedren
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