100
Swaggers with a keen awareness of street-level economy and survival, hard on the game and wryly empathetic toward the players.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
It's powerful material, expertly orchestrated.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
This is gentle, walking-pace cinema that leads us by the hand from vignette to vignette, from scene to scene, presented to us with ingenuous simplicity and calm.
90
The New Yorker by Richard Brody
Sembène looks ruefully yet tenderly at the ruses and wiles of the poor, whose desperate struggles-with the authorities and with one another-distract them from political revolt.
70
The Austin Chronicle by Selome Hailu
It's an illuminating example of neorealist filmmaking and highly stylized comedy from a much needed non-Western perspective.
80
Mandabi's playful grammar and arresting camerawork are as exciting and politically charged as anything that emerged from the contemporaneous Nouvelle Vague.