Hal Kitchen
It’s easy to regard genres as monolithic and universal, we all know a Western when we see one, and it doesn’t even need to be set (or shot) in the American west to quality. However, there are different kinds of genre and they’re defined in different ways. Some are defined by the tropes, setting, scenarios and aesthetics they employ like sci-fi or fantasy, others, like comedies, thrillers and particularly horrors, are defined by their affect. This is a debatable proposition, we often argue over whether a good horror needs to be scary, but if horrors are defined as films that alarm and disturb the viewer, then we can see how much potential there lies in mixing them with adjacent genres—genres that thrill and excite.
We can see this potential explored in Saloum, a unique offering released on Shudder this month, which assembles its narrative from so many fresh and unfamiliar angles, packing its 83-minute runtime with so much intrigue, excitement, and story that it can be a tall order to keep up. Set predominantly in Senegal in the aftermath of the Guinea-Bissou coup d’etat in 2003, Saloum is equal parts war drama, heist movie, revenge western, and supernatural thriller, resulting in a film that feels like nothing so much as The Fog by way of The Hateful Eight and Beasts of No Nation.
The film follows a trio of soldiers of fortune, bound by blood and led by the charismatic yet haunted Chaka (a super-cool Yann Gael) who’ve been contracted to spirit a Latin drug lord (Renaud Farah) out of Bissou; however, their escape plan goes awry when they run out of fuel and are forced to make a stop-over in Saloum, at a co-op run vacation spot presided over by the paternal Omar (Bruno Henry). However, their stay in Saloum was not mere chance, no one is who they appear and everyone is hiding a secret, leading to some inspired moments of revelation including a masterful dinner-table exchange worthy of Inglorious Basterds’ bar scene.
Chaka is still wrestling with the traumatic abuse he suffered as a child soldier that made him the man he is today, his companion Rafa (Roger Sallah) is a live wire, their cargo Felix (Farah) is surly and untrustworthy, and their host Omar also has a violent past he’s supposedly put behind him. Deaf visitor Awa (Evelyne Ily Juhen) wastes no time revealing her advantage over her companions, and neither does late arrival Souleymane (Ndiga Mbow) whose probing questions put everyone on edge. No wonder Chaka’s spiritually inclined mentor Minuit (Mentor Ba) can feel an ill wind blowing. Even before events take a turn for the paranormal, our characters are sitting on a powder keg. Half of them know it, but they’re the ones insistent upon lighting a match regardless.
It’s always a winning trope, to establish a disparate group of characters, give them all reason to hate, fear, and mistrust each other, and then throw them a curve ball that binds their fates and upsets all their prior allegiances and assumptions and then see how they surprise themselves.
With so many factors in play, Saloum could so easily fall into incoherence or slowed itself down with so much excess baggage weighing it down. Plaudits then to writer-director Jean-Luc Herbulot, who besides stretching the minimal budget, manages to pack all this into a story that never cools its heels from one moment to the next. From the first moments his film moves like a greyhound let out of its trap, with characters moving with the music like a scene from Baby Driver as our antiheroes bust out of Bissou with their prize.
The film offers a rich, fresh and authentic perspective on real-world horrors of ongoing colonialist exploitation, violent social and political unrest, child abuse and its traumatic after-effects, and the cyclical nature of revenge, as well as subtler and more abstract themes like language and culture. Yet due to its commitment to its intense story and fast-paced, multifaceted plot, it never feels self-important or burdened with too much obligation to debate itself. These ideas are bonuses, adding credibility and intrigue that speaks to the unique perspective the film offers. With so many Western films offering outsider’s perspectives on West Africa, portraying it as riven from top to bottom with social unrest as a direct result of historical colonial exploitation, it’s exhilarating to see a more authentic, naturalistic take on the region’s recent history, as well as an intimate airing of its folklore, given voice on the screen.
As compelling as they and the mysteries they carry are, Saloum‘s characters are lightly sketched out through the dialogue, a necessity of keeping the film so taut. It’s therefore fortunate that the cast are so adept at bringing them to life. The minute Awa or Rafa, or any other key character here is introduced, you have an immediate understanding of their presence in the story and a desire to know more about them. The story’s mostly kept pretty focused on Chaka, his backstory, and his agency, but it still makes room to give even the most minor of characters their moment to shine through some intense dialogue scenes loaded with conflict.
The film’s approach to characterization is also expressed in other aspects, and it’s here where the film flaunts its pulp fiction roots, with characters lent a debonair swagger by their gloves, sunglasses, braids, or other distinctive accouterments. Yann Gael’s performance is a masterclass in effortless cool, often feeling like two characters in one, one a wounded, desperate man on the edge, the other a hardened, calculating and unflappable cold-heart, able to master any situation with a diplomatic smile. You see him and his crew and you immediately understand and believe the strength of the bond between them and how long they’ve been fighting at each other’s sides, their shared backstory existing as much as an in-universe myth as the tales of vengeful spirits and ‘entities’ out in the wilds. Like any good horror, Saloum knows which threads to follow, and which ones are better left raveled.
The premise of a heist-cum-horror set in war-torn, spirit-haunted West Africa was an almost painfully juicy one, and it’s intensely rewarding to see it wasn’t squandered. Perhaps more could’ve been done to develop on such a rich seam of drama, but not without compromising the drum-tight pace and consistent string of twists and turns that constitute Saloum‘s greatest strengths. It’s a film that doesn’t risk overreaching itself and never gambles on losing its audience’s interest, keeping them reeling all the way to the final curtain by virtue of pure intensity and poetic panache.
