A Season in France

As tough as it is, France is also warm and subtly heartbreaking, offering a moving vision of life for those stuck in legal and emotional limbo.

The habitual calm and gentleness of Mahamat Saleh Haroun’s film-making here has a sharp edge and an overtly political point – as well as a flourish of violent destruction and despair that blindsided me.

While the story plays a bit with the notion of the supernatural, the spirit foregrounded here is more tangible: an ominous sense of restlessness and curtailed dreams.

For all its empathy, Haroun’s latest can be dramatically stiff. The dialogue of his script often sounds like exegesis, with key events bursting into the story like dramatic illustrations of what seems foreordained. Yet this stolid narrative approach feels appropriate for a film that is as much testimony as it is drama.