A SCREAMING MAN (HOMME QUE CRIE) World Cinema

There is a consistency and calm to Adam’s life as a hotel pool attendant, working alongside his son Abdel, that is lost when change comes in the form of new proprietors who terminate Adam’s employment For Adam, a former swimming champion whose moniker “The Champ” is intrinsic to his identity, this displacement leads to depression and jealousy, and he makes a regretful decision The inability of fathers and sons to co-exist is a common theme for director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, as is his exploration of the sorrow of war This Cannes Jury Prize-winning film is on allegory for the toll of the ongoing civil war in Chad: poverty, corruption and the unbearable sacrifice of humanity Pan-African intellectual Aime Cesaire wrote: “Beware of assuming the sterile attitude of a spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of miseries is not a proscenium, a screaming man is not a dancing bear.”