Bamako (2006)

85% of critics liked it
(54 reviews)
66% of users liked it
(2,189 ratings)

Caught in the stranglehold of debt and structural adjustment, the African continent is fighting for its survival. In the face of this disaster, representatives of African society bring an action against international financial institutions. The trial takes place in Bamako, in the yard of a house,… More Caught in the stranglehold of debt and structural adjustment, the African continent is fighting for its survival. In the face of this disaster, representatives of African society bring an action against international financial institutions. The trial takes place in Bamako, in the yard of a house, among its inhabitants who go about their business, attentive or indifferent to the debates. Among them are Chaka and Mele--she is a singer in a bar and he is unemployed. It also doesn't help that their relationship is on the rocks.

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 55 min.
Directed By: Abderrahmane Sissako
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Oct 2, 2006 Wide
On DVD: Mar 25, 2008
Studio: New Yorker Films

Critic Reviews

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
If Jean-Luc Godard had kept his sense of humor, he might be making engaging movies like Bamako.
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
[An] intimate, urgent and wildly imaginative indictment of post-colonial economic policies in Africa.
Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
Trial movies can be painful, but Bamako is a powerful polemic leavened with moments of beauty and humor.
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Bamako is an attack on globalization that is endlessly cogent, confrontational -- and, best of all, as captivating as it is illuminating.
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
A strange and often haunting little film.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
[Director] Sissako somehow manages to reconcile the passionate words of the debate and the mundane activities surrounding it, but he seems most interested in noting and even marveling at the subtle comedy of their coexistence.
Rob Nelson, City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul
Bamako Puts Globalization on Trial
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Bamako is an amazing polemical political film like no other.
Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
Issue-driven drama has rarely been so polemic as it is in this fierce attack on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's role in African poverty.
Robert Davis, Paste Magazine
Sissako's bolt of lightning is how he once again merges spaces: he sets the trial out-of-doors... editing the village's daily events as if they are all a part of the trial's fabric.
Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
A clumsy, talk-heavy and crushingly heavy-handed hybrid. While it may have the best of intentions, Bamako is sometimes hard to watch.
Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times
Unlike other recent films about the plight of Africa, Bamako channels its outrage more directly, yet with greater subtlety, by recruiting real-life witnesses to Africa's economic crises.
Bill White, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Free of the indignant self-righteousness of Michael Moore's lowbrow sloganeering, Abderrahmane Sissako's poetic drama offers a clear-sighted examination of Third World economic collapse.
Moira Sullivan, Movie Magazine International
Bamako is a film that grows on you. Its power is subtle and you don't really feel the impact until it's all over. And when it has, its left with you something unshakeably real.
Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
Dramatic features born and bred on the African continent are rare commodities on these shores, and the opportunities they offer can stretch far beyond film appreciation and into the realm of world understanding.
Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News
Bamako is challenging without a doubt, but Sissako's righteous anger never loses its ability to connect to the heart, even in the film's densest thickets of symbolism.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
Overall, Bamako is a passionate plea, filled with interesting ideas and wrapped up in an uneven presentation.
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
Awkward, dull film.

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Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]"Bamako" is set in the capital of Mali where a trial is being argued in the case of the African peoples vs the World Bank, alleging the World Bank through its usurious loans keeps Africa in a state of perpetual poverty. But after the opening arguments… More
[font=Century Gothic]"Bamako" is set in the capital of Mali where a trial is being argued in the case of the African peoples vs the World Bank, alleging the World Bank through its usurious loans keeps Africa in a state of perpetual poverty. But after the opening arguments point out that the World Bank debt payments dwarf the social services budget of several countries, and the effect of poverty on the citizenry, very little evidence is presented, either way. Alas, the lawsuit is too broad to serve as the basis of a narrative movie and does not adequately give a face to African poverty.(The movie "Yesterday" did excel by bringing the AIDS epidemic down to a human level. And say what you will about "Boston Legal", but that is what it does on a weekly basis, with the issues of the day.) And despite the movie's urgent message, it almost gets lost in its own stridency towards the end.[/font]

Bamako (2006)

Critic Reviews

Featured Audience Ratings

Walter M

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