I like the idea of ocean as a living creature, who can take people's souls forever, but the trip of these souls doesn't stop. Ebert would have given it a thumbs up, Siskel a thumbs down. Version of Cult Brit Conspiracy Thriller Is a Paradise Permanently Lost, ‘Enola Holmes’: Sleuth Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves. In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. This is what cinema looks like. Ada, c’est moi.

Their absence leaves a serious void in the lives of those left behind. There’s been a lot of back and forth recently about what is or is not cinema. What makes Alternate Ending different from other film sites and podcasts? It really scares me, especially after watching the "Atlantique". “Atlantics” premiered in Official Competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Rich soaking colors, lots of shots which emphasize the obstructions of the social/physical environment... Diop's ability to alchemise her supernatural narrative with such effective social commentary is something very special. Atlantics is as much a teen romance as it is a hangout movie at times, and it has more of an Afrofuturistic pulse than anything else. And then something strange and unexpected happens. And folks who haunt the sidebars of film festivals may have caught some of her shorts, notably her 2009 portraiture Atlantiques. A magic realist fantasy, a ghost story, a love story and political allegory, Atlantics packs a deceptive amount of complexity in a gauzy, slender film. Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password. Directed by Mati Diop. The film would end up being just another genre-bending experiment if it wasn't for the documentary undercurrent that manifests all along its duration, or by how it finds in this documentary style an authentically fantastic edge [Full review in Spanish]. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! It has a slippery elegance, an ambitious way of nudging its nose into magic realism, and some unforgettable images. Atlantics is an extraordinarily impressionistic movie, and we might as well suppose that it's Ada's impressions we're receiving. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/movies/atlantics-review.html — Diop distills from this steeped brew a singular take on a sorority of young women butting up against the constraints of their society. There may not be a more potent cinegeek buzz than discovering a new filmmaker with a fully formed voice and vision right out of the gate. Sidney Poitier’s 7 Most Memorable Performances, All Harry Potter Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer, New on Amazon Prime Video in October 2020. The property mogul in charge, Ndiaye (Diankou Sembene), has cashflow issues for which his workers must pay the price. Atlantics depicts Islam with matter-of-factness: No explanation, no exoticization, nor hiding some of its uglier practices. A lot of ideas about class, post-imperialism and spiritual values peek up out of the surface of the text, but they're not developed with much rigor compared to what Diop conjured with more intensity and less time in A Thousand Suns. Our review. Netflix. Eerily beautiful, unique, mesmerising. © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

This is a story that treats its unspeakable tragedy as such: a world-shattering crisis told not through conventional storytelling, but conjured up from the realm of dreams, nightmares, and visions. In this haunting social lament Mati Diop pulls off shifts from social realism to genre mysticism with a poise as supernatural as the force that overtakes her young lovers. It's a place that believes that every great movie is a wonderful new treasure, whether you see it the night of its premiere or fifty years later. But …

Rob, the film-school dropout, has seen an absurd amount of movies, and if we’re being honest, rounds out our Fight Club fan-base. The Atlantic. [Mati] Diop is an excellent visual storyteller. (Notably, Diop is the first black woman director to compete at Cannes.) Or maybe they're the impressions of Dakar itself. It doubles as a nifty summation of the entire film. Well, we’re not 5 dudes in a room talking about our passion for Fight Club and Braveheart. Nothing — not a lingering shot, not a cut, and certainly not a gesture or word from Sane, who shoulders the bulk of the narrative with extraordinary grace — feels false or out of place. I like the idea of ocean as a living creature, who can take people's souls forever, but the trip of these souls doesn't stop. Her film has a seductive mystery. © Copyright 2020 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. [Atlantics] can occasionally feel stretched and thin in certain spots, like a cracking medium-length film padded out to feature runtime. He hasn’t paid them for three months; the skyscraper they’ve been laboring over for years simply towers above Senegal’s hazy cityscape, unfinished. A poetic package crafted by writer/director Mati Diop. Please enter your birth date to watch this video: You are not allowed to view this material at this time.

[Atlantics] can occasionally feel stretched and thin in certain spots, like a cracking medium-length film padded out to feature runtime. Atlantics pulls you into an experience.