A screaming man (2010)

A screaming man is the only film I've seen by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. Even though the story was not always completely believable, the gist of it was deeply touching, and the same goes for Haroun's quiet and observing style. Adam is a former swimming star. Now he works as a swimming pool attendant at a luxurious hotel. His assistant is his son, Ahmed. Workers are laid off at the hotel and Adam is one of them. His son gets his job and being a man for whom the job means everything, this is a harsh blow. Adam's friend try to convince the father that the son should join the army. The son is more or less dragged away to war and the father gets his old job back. A screaming man is set within a country torn apart by war and the character of Adam, Haroun shows us how a person is entangled in the tragedy of war in a way that he has initially little grasp of. Yet, he is responsible, and this reaction is central to the emotional engagement of the film. Haroun skillfully reveals how a society is changed by war. What doesn't work as well is the plot line in which Adam sends his son off to war in order to get the job he loves back. We understand that there is a rigidness to Adam, an attachment to work that provides him with some kind of security. But this is not developed as clearly as it could be, and I was thus left a bit mystified by how the plot progressed. Stylistically, Haroun's composition of scenes and landscapes quickly establishes a cinematic universe that I as a viewer immediately start to care about. The tragedy and the familial relations Haroun describes are movingly portrayed.