Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51734 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-01-08
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Subtitled
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .75" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .20 pounds
• Running time: 96 minutes

Amazon.com
Mocktar, a Nigerien peasant, comes looking for work in Essakane, a dusty gold mine in Northeast Burkina Faso, Africa, where he hopes to forget the past that haunts him. In Essakane, he quickly finds out, the gold rush ended twenty years before, and the inhabitants of this wasteland and strange timelessness manage to exist simply from force of habit. The beautiful Coumba, however, is still courageously struggling to raise her daughter after the death of her family. Mocktar will soon be fighting not only to survive, but also to provide a better future for this mother and her child.

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Customer Reviews

The story of grief and hope
I have been Film Movement's fan for a while and I must admit that their movies are getting better and better as the time goes by. This one is set in Africa and actors speak in French. While the language keeps movie flowing by its beauty, the visual scenes are breathaking. We learn about a small village which was a place of a gold rush 20 years ago. Now it is a place full of people who pay out their own pockets to do back breaking and dangerous jobs while being belittled by their superiors. Most settlers are men and a few women that are around are wives and daughters of the miners some living, some dead. They have no other means of living but dependign on the charity of the miners. As the film unfolds we see that most miners have troubled past. Some used to be rich when they struck gold many years ago; but thir extended families made sure that money is long gone. Others have lost their family to greed - the villagers would kill the family members of the miners who struck gold. It quickly becomes obvious that miners are there because they are either society rejects, or they are atoning for the bad luck they unwillingly brought to their families. All of them are damaged both emotionally and physically. Their lives are desolate like the mines they live in; their happiness is brought on only by drugs from the local plants and drink from the local bar. It is amazing to see them desparately search for their life's purpose under disguise of looking for gold. Their lives follow the shadows of their former selves. Beautiful film, emotional and touching at once.

BEAUTIUFL FILM!
THIS DVD HAS ENGLISH SUBTITLES! YOU MAY NEED TO TURN THEM ON IN YOUR PLAYER OR ON THE DVD ITSELF BUT I WATCHED THE SAME FILM AND IT CLEARLY HAD ENGLISH SUBTITLES THROUGHOUT. A BEAUTIFULY SHOT AND MOVING FILM!

Subtitles don't work...
The cinematography is top notch. I could taste the dust and sand by watching the movie.

The problem with the DVD is no working english subtitles in the movie (spoken in French, I believe) using the WINDVD program in Windows XP. The movie is dialogue-driven, so watching the movie takes a lot of guess work to understand what's going on. I stopped watching the movie as I burned out in guessing the storyline in the movie. If someone has a better DVD player program to properly access the subtitles menu, go for it. I recommend finding another foreign title to purchase other than this one.