Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Atlantics’ on Netflix, a Genre-Defying Blend of Mystical Realism and Classic Romance

Atlantics is on a steady course that any independent film would envy: a Grand Prix (second place) win at Cannes, a quick pickup by Netflix, and now a push for Oscar contention in the foreign-film category. The movie is director Mati Diop’s feature debut, shot in her hometown of Dakar, Senegal; it’s an expanded, fictional take on the narrative of her 2009 documentary short Atlantiques, which chronicled a perilous journey across the ocean to Europe. The current film is Diop’s attempt to blend romance, the supernatural, social commentary and a realist aesthetic, but does is it successful in its ambitions?

ATLANTICS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In Dakar, the gulf between rich and poor is vast, symbolized by a massive, gleaming hotel twisting up into the sky and towering over the nearby slums. The men from those neighborhoods work building the skyscraper, although they haven’t been paid in three months. Among them is young Souleiman (Traore), who rides back home along the heaving coastal waters, which are very… anthropomorphic. And by anthropomorphic, I mean they seem angry, like a jilted lover or someone who’s breaking their back and not getting paid. And I bet those waves are hungry, too.

Souleiman meets with Ada (Mame Bineta Sane). They kiss passionately. He wants to tell her something. She pushes him away coyly, and says to save it for when they reconnect later, after dark. There is no later: Ada arrives at the local bar, and it’s full of dejected women. Weary of working for nothing, Souleiman and all the other construction workers hopped a ship for Spain, chasing the promise of a paycheck. This pushes the heartbroken Ada to follow through with an arranged marriage to Omar (Babacar Sylla), who’s rich, but has the personality of a frostbitten popsicle lost in the depths of the freezer; not everyone gets this kind of opportunity, her mother reminds her. Besides, once Ada gets past the vile and humiliating “virginity test” ordered by her father and Omar’s parents, she’ll be free to live a life of soulless material comfort.

Ada glumly goes through with the wedding, which follows the patriarchal tradition of draping the bride in a long veil so no one can see her. Ada straddles two social cliques, one of headscarved traditionalists, and another that prefers skimpy dresses; both are committed to Ada’s best interests as they see them, but it’s only the latter group that poses on her new matrimonial bed to take selfies. However, as the wedding-night party in Ada’s swanky new home peaks, said bed erupts in flame. Inspector Issa (Amadou Mbow) investigates, is puzzled by the lack of forensic evidence (“Did it just spontaneously combust?” he asks) and concludes Souleiman must have started it. He jails and interrogates Ada, who insists Souleiman is at sea. But Issa begins having… spells. Sweaty spells, followed by fainting. Some of Ada’s friends suffer the same odd affliction. It’s not the flu, but — well, let’s just say it precipitates what I’ll call a visitation, and then put a lid on this summarization.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Beasts of the Southern Wild featured a similar mystical-realism vibe — and was an ambitious arthouse feature making the most of surely limited means.

Performance Worth Watching: As Ada, Sane carries the film with her effortless ability to arouse our empathy for her situation, and her heartbreak.

Memorable Dialogue: “I felt your weeping dragging me to the shore” is a gorgeous piece of a poetic monologue spoken at the movie’s climax.

Sex and Skin: A scene I’ll describe as a tender, understated and artistically photographed consummation of yearning could also be described in more common terms: They finally got they f— on.

Our Take: Fascinatingly, Atlantics splits the hair between being possessed and being a possession. Diop and co-screenwriter Olivier Demangel tangle the politics of gender with economic-class struggle and a classic love-story tragedy, then wraps it all in a shell of myth and intrigue. The sea, the sea, the mighty sea, there’s something strange about the great power it wields, its mysteries, how it can change a man if and when he returns from it. Waves roar like beasts and crash like thunder, and when a storm rages, it can grow as tall as, say, a great and horrible hotel tower, poised to greedily consume all in its path.

Diop’s direction is strong and assured, rooted firmly in the type of handheld-camera realism that makes its folkloric, ghostly peculiarities all the more effective. An eerie, evocative score helps swell the tension of this whodunit, or maybe more accurately, whatdunit, or howdunit. Those are the film’s mechanisms, but it’s ultimately driven by its heart. The Ada character quietly rouses the spirit of classical romance in a story that’s modern in many ways, but in others is as old as humanity itself.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Atlantics is vividly composed both visually and narratively. To watch it is to be engrossed in a thoughtful, gritty fable driven by mysteries that provoke and tantalize, but may never be solved.

 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Atlantics on Netflix