Yeelen (Brightness) poster & wallpaper

Aoua Sangare, Balla Moussa Keita, Ismaila Sarr

A young man with magical powers journeys to his uncle to request help in fighting his sorcerer father.

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65% liked it

589 ratings

Critics

86% liked it

7 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 45 min.

Directed by: Souleymane Cissé

Release Date: January 1, 1987

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DVD Release Date: October 28, 2003

Stats: 29 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (29)

  • gilbertgumphrey
    April 16, 2007
    gilbertgumphrey
    Apparently, I'm one of the few people out there who will take no brownie points regarding a film's quality because of the trials and tribulations associated with it's making. I don't care if it took 20 years and 13 failed marriages and even a trip to Hell and back to make - if t...( read more)he film sucks, then it sucks. Plain and simple. Yeelen is a film that obviously took some effort and some love to make - the filmmakers had almost no money, really; all they had was a pocketful of dreams. Too bad they didn't have a half-way decent screenplay to go with it. Just because a movie comes from an impoverished nation, made by impoverished people about impoverished people, doesn't mean it's automatically good. Pi was made on a shoestring budget - and Aronofsky made a masterpiece. Yeelen, however, is possibly the single most annoying and irritating movie I've ever endured. There is one scene that lasts an excuriating 15 minutes where all the people do is say the same basic things over and over again, smoking pipes, waving tails around, and sing in the single most obnoxious, wailing "voice" I've ever heard. This movie is supposed to be a fairy tale type thing - hero goes on journey, falls in love, defeats evil, etc. etc. But how did they manage to make that so unbearably boring and pointless? Some scenes are inexplicable - why is there one shot of a man with a donkey head laughing? Some are morbidly disturbing - a topless scene of the single most old, withered, and ugly woman I've ever seen definately counts as such. And some scenes are hilariously bad, contrived, and horribly written, acted, and directed - actually, what am I saying - that wasn't just one scene, that was the whole movie. Clearly, the director has no idea how to shoot a film - the hero first showing off his mystical powers was shot so ineptly that it took us about half an hour afterwards to realize he'd done anything at all. And the "final confrontation" is hilarious - the whole movie's been building to a fight between these two, so what happens is they put some poles down, they stare at each other (for endless minutes), light comes from the poles, they fall to their knees blinded - end of scene. That was the final fight. Both are dead now. And blessedly, the movie is close to ending. Honestly - if i was given a choice between death or enduring Yeelen again, I would rather take my shot at seeing Heaven.
  • ralch
    October 5, 2009
    ralch
    WEB-LETTERBOX. Narrativa, como tal, tiene muy poca, pero la película propone otra cosa más cercana a la contemplación de los misterios del universo en el contexto de una cosmogonía particular. El resultado es una experiencia de gran riqueza visual y profundidad espiritual. Para p...( read more)oder apreciarla, sin embargo, hay que pensar más allá del artificio hollywoodense. / Narrative, as such, it has little, but this movie proposes something else, closer to a contemplation of the mysteries of the universe within the context of a specific cosmogony. The result is an experience of great visual richness and spiritual depth. To appreciate it, though, one must think well beyond the Hollywood artifice.
  • janicklavoie
    March 31, 2008
    janicklavoie
    Comme plusieurs films africains c?est rempli de métaphores difficiles à comprendre.

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