Laada

Laada is in many ways a typical film of its period: an allegorical story about the schism between village and city, tradition and modernity, including the question of whether the older ways of life can survive in the face of progress. It’s a subject that Sub-Saharan cinema has wrestled with since its beginnings, and one that knows no easy solution, which is why it needed to be looked at again and again. Drissa Touré did so by way of a tale involving three young men, one of whom stays in their home village to live in accordance with its age-honed customs and rhythms, while the other two try their luck in the city, taking chances with an unknown world of behaviours.

Touré knew that stories like this had been told time and again, which enabled him to focus on the essentials: the three paths complement, complete and contradict one another, making it possible to develop each scene almost like a little cosmos in and of itself. Laada is above all dedicated to details and nuances, unhurried in its tone yet brisk and decisive in its drive ahead, classical in its craft and modern in its voice.

– Olaf Möller

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