DEMBA – Review by Diane Carson
Demba profiles a Senegalese worker and his family.
In his second feature film, Senegalese writer/director Mamadou Dia’s Demba challenges viewers in unexpected ways in a story alternating neorealist and hallucinatory elements. Demba invites and deserves rapt attention for its chronicling of the interconnected, troubled lives of Demba Lam, his colleagues, son Bajjo, and the modest community. The opening, extreme long shot of the rundown northern Senegalese Matam City Hall, identified in on-screen titles, effectively sets the scene. Clearly having seen better days, the shabby building serves as a metaphor for Demba who emerges from the front door, following a young man (he’ll be recognized later as Bajjo) who says, “I did not ask to be picked up.” Looking defeated, Demba does not respond.
In the next scene, still in his shirt and tie (his preferred ensemble as he strives to maintain a semblance of dignity) Demba sits on his couch watching old videos of both his wife and himself joyfully dancing to music. Smiling, Demba expresses what he attempts to prove for the remainder of the film, saying, “I am not useless.” He will often remember and the film will include Awa in several scenes as Demba’s mental meandering progresses. In the next pivotal conflict, Demba sits across a desk from a past friend of his, now the Matam mayor, an ex-bouncer at a club who, unlike Demba, has capitalized on political and relatives’ connections. By contrast, as Matam City clerk, 55-year-old, Demba has conscientiously created, indexed, and filed the city’s registers for over 27 years. Nine months from retiring, unexpectedly declared redundant with the city’s adoption of a digitizing program, behind on rent, grieving the loss of wife Awa as that two year anniversary approaches, and hoping to reconnect with his son Bajjo who works at a cyber cafe, Demba flounders, adrift emotionally and professionally.
In essence, Demba is a multidimensional individual, accused of being incompetent and bad-tempered, which he can be, and yet he befriends young boys and comes to the aid of a local boxing coach by providing a critical birth certificate for a talented boxer, the certificate from a deceased teenager. Adding complexity to the expansive, rambling narrative, Bajjo watches a modern music video, pursues a romantic attraction to Oumy, and wanders in and out of Demba’s life. Occasionally, when they aren’t squabbling, Demba strives to advise Bajjo, telling him, “Wealth is a mad guest. It comes and goes without warning.” His television pawned, he knows. Most heartbreaking and revealing, Demba says to a young boy, “Once you grow up, you’ll see that being bored hurts less than being lonely.”
With earned sentiment, with understanding and compassion, with careful characterization devoid of any reductive stereotypes, writer/director Dia fashions an elaborate deep dive into coping with personal and professional loss, estrangement from one’s offspring, and a society changing in unprecedented ways. Throughout his many moods and emotions, in a powerful performance, Ben Mahmoud Mbow moves slowly but deliberately through reality and imagination, registering pain and joy through his verbal and nonverbal reactions. The celebration of the Tajabone holiday is an unexpectedly surreal and transcendent finale with carnivalesque overtones. Interpreted through expressionistic lighting, especially strong blues and yellows, accompanied by infrequent but always effective music, the film immerses viewers in Demba’s occasionally unhinged world with a psychological honesty that makes Demba a memorable experience. In Fulani and French with English subtitles.