Night of the Kings mixes dazzling myth and brutal Ivory Coast reality, at The Cinematheque to April 8
A young man must tell a story to survive the night at the infamous La MACA prison
The Cinematheque streams Night of the Kings until April 8
MAGIC REALISM makes an unlikely mix with Scheherazade and prison drama in French-Ivorian director Philipe Lacôte’s epic and hyperenergized Night of the Kings. It’s the latest exciting new African film that The Cinematheque is bringing to world-movie-starved cinephiles.
A young man (Bakary Koné) has just arrived at La MACA penitentiary — the infamous fortress set in thick jungle outside the Ivory Coast capital of Abidjan. If he wants to survive the night, the terrified new “Roman” has to tell the crowded prisoners a story, as ordered by—who else?—an aging boss named Blackbeard.
What the youth is really doing is carrying on the age-old tradition of the griot—West African storytellers who pass on the region’s oral history. Note that Lacôte’s dazzling film, an instant hit at the Venice Film Festival, is rooted in reality: the director’s own mother was once held at the infamous prison for taking part in a political protest, and storytelling is reportedly a nightly ritual there, despite the chaos.
And so fabulism weaves mesmerizingly into the violent reality of gangs and politics in contemporary Ivory Coast. Enjoy the ride.
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