Un Homme Qui Crie ( A Screaming Man)

Un Homme qui crie ( A Screaming Man) (2010), written and directed by Mahamat Saleh Haroun, is his personal record of the effects of the Chadian war on the lives of some of its citizens.

The film opens with two good friends, both in their 60s playing at a friendly "holding the breath" competition at the swimming pool of a run down  hotel  in N' Djamena, the Chadian capital, a cook David ( Marius Yelolo) ) and the pool attendant Adam (Youssouf Djaro) who used to be the swimming champion of the country in 1965. A new Chinese owner has just bought the hotel and is considering some staff reorganization. The cook was worried that he would be laid off whilst the pool attendant assured him that that would not happen because he had been working there for 30 years.

When the pool attendant returns home, we see him having dinner with his wife and adult son Abdel (Dioucounda Koma). Partly becasue of constant pressure from the District Chief for all citizens to contribute to the Patriotic Union, he urges the son to join the army but the latter thinks that there is no point losing one's life fighting the rebels.Then we are shown how anxiously they are waiting for the decision of the management. The cook is laid off whilst the pool attendant is transferred, much to his surprise and resentment, to work as the car park attendant and his place taken up by his son. During one of their discussions about the impending war and their own career prospects, ,.

We next see a group of soldiers coming to the pool attendant's home and conscripting him as a solider and hear from the radio that there was a particularly heavy battle between government and rebels troops which are closing in on the capita following which a curfew was imposed and during the day, the streets are full of people with all their belongings on their head or their hands, all rushing off to avoid the impending civil war at the capital.

The pool attendant instinctively felt that his son might be injured and went to the temporary hospital for wounded Governemtn solddier, found his son and returned home and told his wife in tears that it was he who tipped the governement troops off and signed the papers for his being drafted. Perhaps he could never forgive his son for taking his place at the pool, with whom he had identified with his pride as an honourable completion to ahis past glory. 

The film is a realistic record of the war in Chad and won the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. The photography and acting are good, but the story seems a bit thin. I'd give it a 2B minus.