Un homme sans l’occident

Depardon’s latest declaration of love for the African world of experience is loosely based on the novel Sahara: Un homme sans l’occident by D.C.J. Brosset. What especially appealed to Depardon in it was that ‘for a change is was not about the eternal existential question of the first colonial rulers hunting the last remaining rebels’, but, on the other hand, about the life of one of the last free men of the Sahara at the beginning of the twentieth century. Abandoned and then adopted by a group of hunters, our hero grows up to be a respected guide who tries to stay out of the grip of advancing colonisation.In overwhelming black & white, without antics and apparently without much intervention, almost like an anthropologist Depardon shows how people lived, communicated and survived in the desert about ninety years ago. He found the protagonist in the street in Chad and was given a lot of help by the local population in making the film. In very harsh conditions, with the smallest possible crew, the film was shot using an old film camera, because the latest models cannot cope with all consuming sandstorms. The power of the film is the detailed attention for the language, etiquette and actions of the nomadic tribes, but above all for the Sahara itself.