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May 5, 2017 · The film tells the story of Félicité, a strong and proud woman who sings at a Kinshasa bar every evening, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Félicité’s life is thrown chaotically off-track when her 14-year-old son, Sapo, is the victim of a motorbike accident, and she must rapidly find the financial means to fund his urgent hospital ...
Feb 15, 2017 · And how does her personality influence the journey she must go on? The direction of the character is that she’s quite a political character in some ways, and yet she must change.
Oct 4, 2017 · We begin with Richard Brody, writing in the New Yorker about Alain Gomis’s Félicité, “a dramatic portrait of a fierce, intrepid woman—a single mother and a powerfully expressive cabaret singer (Véro Tshanda Beya Mputu) in Kinshasa who is wrenched from her routine and discovers newfound purpose when her teen-age son, Samo (Gaetan ...
- On A Mission
- Not Broken, Not Bowed
- A Ferocious Woman
- Beautifully Haunting
- Will and Acceptance
- In Conclusion: Félicité
This is very much a film of two distinct halves. The first is fast-paced, almost breathless, as Félicité throws herself into the quest for cash with zeal, approaching friends, employers, and even people she has never before laid eyes on, for contributions. But proceedings slow perhaps a little too much at the halfway mark as she and Samo, plus Féli...
Those scenes in which Félicité tries to raise funds are brutal – both physically and emotionally. She visits Samo’s father, from whom she is long-estranged, and he uses it as an opportunity for revenge (“You puffed out your chest. A strong woman!”). She visits an old friend of her mother’s (or possibly a relative – it isn’t made explicit), only to ...
Beyabrings gravitas to the role, her Félicité has clearly been a fighter her entire life, and she exudes attitude, determination, and strength. Every battle she’s fought is etched into the contours of her face, which we see in imperfect close-ups a lot of the time. Often her expression is blank, yet you are never in any doubt which emotions are boi...
The film has an almost documentary style that perfectly suits the social realism of its subject matter, but the fantasy sequences that pop up every now and again are perhaps less successful. Apparently, Gomis (whose last theatrical feature was 2012’s Aujourd’hui) was keen to show Félicité as a “mythological character”, in the mold of a classical Gr...
Gomishas said the film should prick Europeans’ sensibilities about the way in which their own countries treat the poor and sick. But, living in the UK, that’s a blow that doesn’t quite land, because here we have an (admittedly embattled) National Health Service, that remains free to use. By and large, we Brits don’t have to call in markers or knock...
Félicité – Senegal’s entry for 2018’s Foreign Language Oscar – contains some of the most powerful moments you’ll see in any movie this year. However, Gomis‘s film never quite amounts to the sum of its impressive parts, its fantasy sequences distracting from, and superfluous to, the main action. What is your favourite musical score in a movie this y...
Dec 29, 2017 · Cold hard cash, rather than the dubious choices of the men in her life, becomes the primary constraint to Félicité’s narrative. In the buzzing world of working class Kinshasa, cash flows quickly and dramatically. Félicité is swindled by a hospital guest who offers to buy her son’s medicine.
Félicité recounts the struggle of a brave, strong mother, honestly and without ever falling into cliché, in a city where dreams and music reign and where resourcefulness beats back poverty. A realistic and gracious portrait of this city and its heroine.
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Oct 24, 2017 · In a scene from Alain Gomis’s entrancing new film Félicité, the band members (playing characters based loosely on themselves) gather to decide how much each of them can contribute towards an...
