Philippe Lacôte understands the cyclical nature of human conflict and how invaluable the stories people tell about their collective past are. In the remarkable “Night Of The Kings,” the Ivorian director’s follow-up to the political turmoil drama “Run,” oral tradition enlivens a chaotic microcosm that’s suspended somewhere between an ancient saga and contemporary unrest.
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Under its own code of conduct and lore, La MACA, a prison nestled in a lush forest in the West African nation of Ivory Coast, is a kingdom onto itself where veteran inmate Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu) governs. As Dangoro or supreme leader, he has more authority over the population than the armed staff. What he commands goes. According to tradition, however, it’s his duty to relinquish the throne if illness impedes him from keeping order. We enter on the fateful night this transition of power will occur.
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An ominous red moon hangs over the prison, as cinematographer Tobie Marier-Robitaille illuminates dark corridors and lived-in cells with incandescent tones. His entrancing lighting work makes the jail feel as if it were a castle lit with torches, while the choice to shoot crucial conversations from afar, as if spying from outside royal chambers, evokes classical palace intrigue. ”Night of the Kings” distances itself from the well-trodden setting of European period affairs not only via its modern African context, but most importantly by way of lyrical mysticism.
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Preparing to step down, and with opposing factions seeking to undermine him, Blackbeard appoints a young man (Bakary Koné), who arrived at La MACA that very day, as the “Roman,” the realm’s storyteller tasked with keeping the crowd entertained as the Dangoro ends his own life welcoming a new reign. Like Scheherazade in “One Thousand and One Nights,” Roman quickly learns that every word he utters, every subplot or back-story he fabricates buys him a little more time alive.
With a permanently frightened expression, Koné conveys the almost unbearable tension that plagues Roman while he spins the ballad of Zama King, a violent scoundrel who leads a notorious criminal group known as Microbes that terrorized the major city of Abidjan. As Roman pieces together a fragmented narrative that starts at the end, Lacôte fearlessly combines flashbacks with an element of theatrical live performance: spectators embellish Roman’s narration with sound effects and spontaneous performances, for a vibrant, and formally avant-garde construction.
Through Roman’s hybrid fable, built from legend and truth, “Night of the Kings” traverses the history of the country from a time when a queen ruled over the land to the recent conflict that ousted president Laurent Gbagbo. That Lacôte succeeds at integrating such aesthetically and tonally disparate elements with great dexterity in a coherent, unified work is astounding. In this directorial feat, Lacôte also draws similarities between bloodshed involving two bands of the same clan (a brother and a sister, a civil war, insurgency among the tight-knit inhabitants of a penitentiary) and how both sides suffer in the shuffle.
Even when Roman’s yarn takes a turn for the fantastical taking us into an epic showdown between two royal siblings, there’s no disconnect. Unexpected yet accomplished VFX and the regal work of costume designer Hanna Sjödin dazzle during this sequence, which almost feels plucked from a tent-pole, superhero movie.
Over the course of the evening, we meet a collection of incarcerated characters and even a guard fed up with the impotence of having no jurisdiction over his own workplace. Everyone is a piece on a chessboard where alliances and betrayals are separated by a thin margin. The social dynamics on display harks back to Héctor Babenco’s Brazilian feature 2003 “Carandiru.”
Young newcomer Koné builds Roman, a teen about to crack, with the clay of guilt and the heat of panic. He is on the verge of his own destiny trying to amuse his way out of a fatal outcome. Played with solemn sternness by Tientcheu (seen recently in Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables”), a defeated Blackbeard, who believes in reincarnation, has laid out an inescapable path for Roman, and in the scenes they share together, the bleakness of mortality and the recklessness of youth contrast.
French character actor Denis Lavant (“Holy Motors”) plays the sole white prisoner in the vivid milieu, a nameless man who procures the friendship of a chicken. Lavant’s character observes without getting explicitly involved, yet he takes it upon himself to look out for the young Roman. Perfectly comfortable in the peculiarity of the small part, he fits right in.
A striking tribute to the power of storytelling, “Night of the Kings” takes men deemed pariahs and presents them as so much more than their current circumstances. They are the descendants of royalty and comrades of revolutionaries. In Roman’s account, Zama King can be the son of a queen’s trusted adviser, a freedom fighter helping bring down a dictator, and a dangerous offender all in the same dramatic arc. No one’s story is entirely fixed. As sunrise dawns on La MACA after a riveting and mortal melee, maybe there’s a chance for all the players to rewrite their myths for the better. [A]
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