Night of the Kings: African prison-set Scheherazade is a beautiful piece of storytelling about storytelling
By Jim Slotek
Rating: A-
As much an imaginative piece of theatrical performance as it is a film, Philippe Lacôte’s Night of the Kings is an improbably smooth mix of Africanized magical realism, squalor, and suspense.
It uses as its frame the tale of Scheherazade from One Thousand and One Nights. In this case, the central character, a newly arrived inmate in the Ivory Coast’s worst prison, must tell a story that lasts the night, lest he be murdered for his failure.
Roman (Bakary Koné) tells a story to save his life in Night of the Kings.
Below the surface, Lacôte’s movie is a beautifully shot parable within a parable, simultaneously about the ruptured, often lawless, civil-war-torn recent Ivory Coast and about the characters in a desperate round of storytelling.
We never even learn the name of the intimidated young man (played by Bakary Koné) who’s processed in the opening scenes at MACA, a prison so barbarous, the warden mainly lays low and lets the prisoners police themselves. We learn the newcomer was a member of a notorious gang called The Microbes, whose leader, Zama, was recently killed.
But he soon is given a name by Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu), the ailing leader of the inmates, whose failing health assures his days as boss are numbered.
The name: Roman (the French word for a literary novel), the monicker given to the inmate who is chosen to entertain the assembled criminals until “the red moon” sets. A desperate Blackbeard, whose throne is coveted by competing bad-asses Lass (Abdoul Karim Konaté) and Half-Mad (Jean Cyrille Digbeu), intends to use the delay of the ritual to his advantage, though we’re not sure how.
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
Roman’s story is partly autobiographical, to the extent that it involves incarnations of his murdered leader Zama. One is an invocation of a 19th Century African tribal war, in which a young Zama pledges to help a Queen (Laetitia Ky) overthrow her brother. It is a hyper-jump in violent depictions, from one of grim degradation to one of beautifully shot, stylized and colourful African warrior culture.
As the story evolves, the inmates become a kind of Greek chorus, heckling at times, choreographically acting out the events of the story at others.
And amid this grey environment, the inmates are colourful indeed, including the transgender Sexy (Gbazi Yves Landry), and a sympathetic, eccentric old man named Silence (Denis Lavant).
As the last act looms, events in the story begin to dovetail with the looming overthrow attempt. Lacôte has a clear gift for seamlessly grafting narratives. And Night of the Kings (the title is that of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night translated in French) is a beautiful piece of storytelling about storytelling.
Night of the Kings. Written and directed by Philippe Lacôte. Starring Bakary Koné, Steve Tientcheu and Laetitia Ky. Opens March 12 at the TIFF Digital Bell Lightbox.