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France, Belgium, Chad · 2010
1h 32m
Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Starring Youssouf Djaoro, Dioucounda Koma, Emile Abossolo M'bo, Hadje Fatime N'Goua
Genre Drama, War
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Adam, sixty something and a former swimming champion, is the pool attendant at a hotel. When the hotel gets bought by new owners, he is forced to give his job to his son, Abdel. Meanwhile, the country is in the throes of a civil war, and the government demands that the population contribute to the "war effort." But Adam is penniless; he has only his son.
The first half-hour is as evocative as (and more specific than) Claire Denis' "White Material," a similarly broad treatment of post-colonial chaos. The rest, sadly, falls apart, but Haroun's formal skill confirms his continual promise.
A collective sense of psychological turmoil seems to weigh heavily on the entire country as much as Champ, reaching critical mass once chaos creeps into the city-leading to a quiet, climactic walk into darkness that earns the right to be called haunting.
At its core, A Screaming Man emphasizes the strength of family bonds. It's a sad, moving portrait that has nothing to do with its chaotic setting.
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
Haroun is achingly conscious of day-to-day decisions that seem small when they're made but can suddenly loom large.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
It's a modest film, if only in scale and apparent budget, about some of the greatest questions in life, like the existence of God, our capacity to see beyond our own vanity and the legacies of fathers, both blood and state.
Village Voice by Nick Pinkerton
The characterizations never comfortably accommodate Haroun's pat metaphor, though his stoic visual storytelling has an oblique gravity.
Haroun’s tender but unsentimental regard for his characters allows his storytelling a natural gravitas thoroughly suited to the simultaneously unfolding private and national tragedies.
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