A Screaming Man (2011)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 37
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 852
My Rating
Movie Info
Film Forum is pleased to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of A SCREAMING MAN, written and directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, beginning Wednesday, April 13. Shot in Chad, portraying the psychological fall-out of an endless civil war, A SCREAMING MAN is titled ironically, from a director who credits Ozu as his strongest influence. Adam is a former swimming medalist, now a 60-year-old hotel employee and head "pool man," who maintains this calm oasis as much for his own benefit as for the hotel's
Apr 13, 2011 Limited
Aug 2, 2011
$9.9k
Film Movement
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Cast
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Emile Abossolo-M'bo
Chef de quartier, Le ch... -
Youssouf Djaoro
Adam, Adam Ousmane 'Cha... -
Diouc Koma
Abdel -
Djénéba Koné
Djeneba -
Li Heling
Mme Wang -
Hadje Fatime N'Goua
Mariam -
Marius Yelolo
David -
Dioucounda Koma
Le chef de quartier -
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All Critics (37) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (33) | Rotten (4) | DVD (1)
It's an intelligent, good-looking film and one that confirms Haroun as one of Africa's leading filmmakers.
Top CriticDirector Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's movie... shows the quiet desperation that results from inner and outer conflicts.
[Goes] in a blink from an intriguing personal-breakdown portrait to an all-out social autopsy on life during perpetual wartime.
The film is quiet and thoughtful, yet forcefully makes its point about the folly of war.
"A Screaming Man" is a quiet, tender, finally wrenching story of an individual at the intersection of the personal and the political.
The characterizations never comfortably accommodate Haroun's pat metaphor, though his stoic visual storytelling has an oblique gravity, suggesting a slightly altered meaning to each surveying shot of the poolside patio.
Engrossing arty melodrama that brilliantly blends together a tragic political and psychological story set in modern-day Chad.
full review at Movies for the Masses
One man's dark night of the soul brought on by civil war in Chad.
It's a quietly devastating film, aided greatly by a haunting performance from Djaoro.
Tenderly observed and admirably restrained, A Screaming Man builds into an austere, quietly haunting tragedy.
A Screaming Man is a quiet film about family life, the relationship between fathers and children, and the way generations can shape and reshape each other. It ultimately has a sublime quality.
This is a powerful and depressingly downbeat drama that is often hard to watch, although the inexpressive nature of the main character means that it's difficult to fully engage on an emotional level.
This is not only a good-looking, well directed and splendidly shot and acted film. It is an unforgettable snapshot of a failed country, and one of the best films in London at the moment.
Engrossing and enlightening but it doesn't quite live up to its considerable promise.
Betrayal, guilt, denial, faith and secrecy all roil about beneath the film's placid, almost wordless surface, which is beautifully observed with a stately, Ozu-like calmness.
The director's style is certainly deliberate, but the gradual build-up of events is undeniably thought-provoking, played out in images of stark beauty as Adam's personal odyssey reaches a powerful and moving conclusion.
Haroun deploys no rhetoric at all. His cinema is as mute as Bresson, yet as incandescent.
A moving, compassionate film, shot with near Ozu-like restraint.
Beautifully understated, Haroun gives his story room to breathe and the tenderness to touch the heart. A thoughtful tale of fathers and sons.
Draws from a personal understanding that gives its fictional story a tinge of emotional reportage.
Haroun's formal skill confirms his continual promise.
It's extremely well-intended and contains the broad strokes of a much better movie, but A Screaming Man's inhuman characters lead to an unfortunate descent into clichés.
A beautifully photographed tale of betrayal, A Screaming Man nevertheless turns on an improbable transformation by the main character, a father in war-torn Chad.
Audience Reviews for A Screaming Man
Super Reviewer
"A Screaming Man" is a prime example of economic and sparse filmmaking in the neo-realist tradition. While it might seem more than a little strange to outsiders the importance Adam places on his pool job, it is probably best to remember the high value of water in such an arid country as Chad. It is maybe instead the tourists who should be chided for their partying in a time of war but then they are probably just believing the government propaganda. On another level, this allegorical movie could also said to be about how scary change can be, as we get a couple of reminders that Adam is not quite the person he used to be. Of course, who knows what the future will bring any of us?
Super Reviewer
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April 14, 2011:
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Foreign Titles
- Ein Mann, der schreit (DE)
- A Screaming Man (Un homme qui crie) (UK)
I understand why this film got rave reviews. There is a quiet power to Emile Abossolo-M'bo's performance, and the filmmaking is full of subtle moments of his character's quiet desperation. And the film doesn't make an overt, in-your-face political point, but by the end, we can't escape the folly of war.
But the film is remarkably slow. One moment of strong acting is also an example of the film's main flaw: the camera starts at a three-quarter shot of Adam, and over the course of about forty-five seconds, it zooms in to a extreme close-up just as a tear forms in Adam's right eye. It takes an amazing amount of talent for an actor to make that work, and even though M'bo does, it's an incredibly long way to travel for the payoff. If this were the only slow moment in the film, I'd be raving, but cumulatively, there are at least fifteen minutes composed of Adam walking down the same streets he later rides a motorcycle down. And on and on. When Stanley Kubrick employed some of the same camerawork, it built suspense; when director Mahamet Saleh Haroun tries these tricks, it's too much, comprising a film that is tortuously slow.
Overall, I'm sympathetic to the film's political points and subtle filmmaking, but if only there were a character with youthful energy (Adam's son is a prime candidate), then it would balance the film's overall meandering style.