Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and Achouackh Abakar Souleymane Interview (Lingui, the Sacred Bonds)
The director and star of a galvanizing drama of sisterhood from Chad called Lingui, the Sacred Bonds
Lingui, the Sacred Bonds: An Interview with Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and Actor Achouackh Abakar Souleymane
By Nicolas Rapold
Lately I’ve been happily using this space to share movies which haven’t come up in my writing yet. One such film is the beautifully shot and quietly gripping story of sisterhood, Lingui, the Sacred Bonds, which premiered last summer at Cannes and opens today at Film Forum. Written and directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, it elegantly pulls together the dual story of Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane), a woman making ends meet in Chad’s capital, and her 15-year-old daughter, Maria, who is pregnant. Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio) is expelled by school officials, and she and Amina face disapproval and worse in a country where abortion is illegal and the pressures of religious tradition are strong. I was especially moved by Amina’s strength of will and how their experience leads her to a kind of revival of her past self.
Lingui, the Sacred Bonds is the latest film by the France-based Haroun, the standard-bearer for Chadian cinema who continues to craft galvanizing stories about people pushed to the margins by society. I spoke with Haroun and Achouackh Abakar Souleymane, who plays Amina. Besides being a great chance to watch their rapport (reached separately in Chad and France), I learned what went into the filmmaking and gained a new understanding of Haroun’s disparate cinematic influences.
What were the storytelling challenges when crafting a screenplay around Amina and her daughter’s story?
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: I wanted to show how in this situation, the tenderness between mother and daughter is the only force they have to oppose the forces of patriarchy. They are fragile because they are marginalized and rejected by their family. The only thing they have to be connected is this love and tenderness they have. In the whole script I wanted to create a mise en scène of tenderness against violence. You don’t have to say it in the script like that, but the idea was to show the force of tenderness. That’s how they can keep on going, even if they are victims of violence. If there was no tenderness, there was no way to struggle at all.
Achouackh, what made you want to take this role?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: Honestly, I was more driven in the beginning by [the prospect of] acting, because I didn’t know the story yet. I had a little piece of the story at first, but it was when we started shooting that I got to know the whole story. Every day was an experience, a discovery. I’m a woman and I’m a mother, but playing Amina, it makes you realize how many struggles women go through. It’s not just in Africa, in Chad, but everywhere in the world. And this actually made me love Amina and want to go for it, and to feel all the emotions.
I felt that the movie is not just about this particular story, it’s also a story of what has happened before and could happen again. We see that partly in how Amina’s own experience as a single mother is echoed in what her daughter might face.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Yes, that’s right. I wanted to show—without showing Amina’s story—how there is a kind of circle, a kind of determinism. Step by step, Amina discovers a consciousness: if she wants to stop this circle, to break out of it, she has to save her daughter. Even if she will be going against religion, against beliefs, against all of this power... It’s a long story, not just beginning with their story right now—it’s been like that for many years. We can say the movie is like a memory of the history of women in Chad.
Even in recent history, in the past 20 years, how has the situation changed in Chad?
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: The situation changed because 20 years ago, we didn’t have Islam playing this big a part in Chad. It was more, let’s say, “cool”—people believed without being violent. But step by step, the situation with religion and especially with Islam is more dramatic now, as we show in the film. It’s a shame. Amina is under pressure from the Imam. It was easier 20 years ago than now.
Could you talk about the importance of the opening scene? We watch Amina stripping tires to make a kanoun (stove) and it’s such an eloquent moment, a different way to begin a movie.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: I wanted to draw the character of Amina through actions—without words, just working. And be with her: I really wanted the audience from the beginning to be with this woman and to discover her face. That’s why you have the close-up. I wanted to start like that to let people be inside of her story. It was written like that in the script. And I was convinced that if I wanted people to be with this woman, I have to show how she works, how painful it is, and how she’s struggling. Even her work is not simple. She’s struggling with these wheels, and so even existing, living, is not very easy for her. You can understand that very quickly.
Was it helpful having this physical task in creating and embodying your character, Achouackh?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: Yes. In my nature, I like to do jobs that make you move. I don’t like to sit in an office. I move from place to place. So I really loved it. This is the thing I loved the most about Amina: she’s a working lady. A little bit like me. And I learned how to make the kanoun. I learned for four weeks. I loved the result.
Did you keep a kanoun you made?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: I kept the one that I made to learn. A little one. I took a picture and sent it to Haroun and he said, “Okay, yes, you’re ready now.”
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: By the way, I was inspired by an American film, There Will Be Blood. There’s a story of a father, and he’s working and then he falls down. You have all the psychology there. This was a secret reference. I have never told anyone. So you are the lucky guy I am telling this to! It’s a story from a book, about the exploitation of oil. It’s a really strong film.
At this point in your career, which filmmakers do you feel close to?
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: I feel myself very close to Neorealism in Italy. But in form, I love American storytelling. I don’t always have happy endings. But I love how you know there is always something, this idea of a conquest. It influences me in a way, because I saw a lot of western movies when I was a kid. So I am trying to build something between western movies and Bollywood movies, because I grew up with these two styles of film. And then I discovered Neorealism, which has something very political in it. My cinema has to be political because of my situation in Chad. I can’t just make science fiction. The reality is too strong.
How was it shooting on location in Chad?
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: When you shoot a street there, it’s always a little bit difficult. Everyone is looking at the camera. But for this film, I tried to create a location, the house of Amina. I wanted it to be like a cocoon. There’s all this noise, so she builds a silent refuge. You have this space of tenderness with her daughter, and the animals. This is the place where she can get the energy to start again tomorrow. So the concept was that this place was the central location. We built a wall to make what you see in the film—it was a courtyard, it wasn’t like that in reality.
Sometimes we also have wide shots. This is the influence of westerns. If I can, I love to shoot wide, and this idea of having a kind of challenge, something to accomplish. In American cinema you always have to accomplish something, and it’s well done. It gives meaning to main characters in films when they have a challenge.
I love the character of Amina because at first we think we might understand her in terms of her role as a mother helping her daughter. But at a certain point I feel that she just thinks, “What’s the point of playing the perfect mother and following all the rules the men are setting?” And she almost becomes another person, drawing on her younger self.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: [chuckles] Yeah, that’s right. In the first part of the film, she’s playing a role to become the right woman, the right Muslim. But then there are so many problems and this problem with her daughter, so she thinks, “Well, I have to show my real face, and this real face is just my own truth, and feeling my own sensations. And with that maybe I can be right. Because I’m me. I’m not someone else who is just saying yes, going to the mosque, etc.” So she reveals another face. That’s why I used to say that by saving her daughter, she saves herself from this patriarchy and this domination. Your interpretation is right.
She even smokes! Achouackh smokes in reality, but never in public. She hides herself. But after the screening in Chad, a lot of people saw the film, and she was stressed because women don’t smoke in Chad. But no one said anything. Everyone was just saying, oh, congratulations, it’s so moving. So she came to me and said, “You know what? Now I can smoke publicly. No one cares about it.” So it’s also like an emancipation for Achouackh in her real life. Achouackh, do you want to add something? She’s laughing.
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: It was very satisfying to be able to do this in the movie. Whatever it is, we all have dreams, we all have a hidden personality, something that we don’t show to others. And for women here, it’s like that. Now with technology, everyone is aware of everything, but we contain ourselves to be part of the society. And Amina, being a teenage mom, with all the problems she has, maybe she found a way to relax by smoking or dancing, but this is something she was not even able to show to herself. I think a lot of women are just relieved if someone does something to show that it’s actually okay: I can be a mother, I can be Muslim, I can pray, but I can do other things too.
Have you had conversations with friends or family about the movie like that?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: Oh yeah. Like every single day. And people started to recognize me. “Oh, are you the one in the movie?” But it’s been three months now, but I didn’t get anyone coming to me saying that this was wrong. Everyone at a certain point just wants to be alive! I think that is what happened with Amina.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Yes, even for Achouackh, she has to respect the rules of the group, but if you know her a little bit, she has two restaurants. She reveals another face when she is confident with people. And you know it’s not the same lady. But she likes to keep being the right woman because the group doesn’t want her to become another person. So in the film, it was also for her to show how she is in reality and what she couldn’t show in daily life—I think. Am I right, Achouackh?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: Yes. And it’s weird: everyone’s like that, right? Hiding.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: So we brought you your freedom on a plate. [chuckles]
Achouackh, can you tell me more about your restaurants? I had no idea.
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: I have two restaurants. One is downtown. The second one is in a different neighborhood. I do African food. I try to present Chadian and African food in a modernized way. Because I lived in America, in California, for ten years. And I realized that there are people who are not Chadian but they want to discover and eat Chadian food, and there was no place you can have typical Chadian food. So this is where the idea came from, and now I have two restaurants!
And now for my usual question: what was the last movie each of you has seen?
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: The most recent movie I have seen was Exterminate All the Brutes by Raoul Peck. We had the first screening here in Paris three days ago. So I was there. By the way, I have a kind of cameo in the series. So I was really interested.
That is a powerful series.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Yes. Very powerful.
And for you, Achouackh?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: We have no cinema [theater] here. And my Netflix account is not working anymore. So I watch movies when I travel.
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Didn’t you see Haut et Fort? The film from Cannes the Moroccan guy made, Casablanca Beats [the film’s English title]. [Directed by] Nabil Ayouch.
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: Yes!
And my last question, what is each of you working on next? Achouackh, are you taking another role?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: Can I say what I want?
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Go ahead.
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: Wakanda! [laughs]
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun: Well, I’m thinking of seeing if she can play a lesbian girl in a love story between girls in Chad. She said, why not? So maybe this is the next one. What do you think, Achouackh?
Achouackh Abakar Souleymane: For all the women in Chad I will play that.
Nicolas Rapold is the editor and host of The Last Thing I Saw. His podcast features conversations with critics and filmmakers about new releases, old favorites, home viewing, and the latest from festivals. His features, interviews, festival dispatches, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Sight & Sound, Artforum, Filmmaker, and W Magazine. In days of yore he worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment. He can be reached at nicolas.rapold@gmail.com or on Twitter at @nicolasrapold