'Lingui, The Sacred Bonds': A Rich Pro-Choice Meditation [Cannes Review]

Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds,” a slow burn from the Chadian filmmaker, operates through a deceptively simple premise: A single mother living on the modest outskirts of N’djamena, Chad watches her 15-year old daughter emotionally withdraw only to discover she’s pregnant. In a Muslim country where single motherhood is already frowned upon. And abortion illegal. Both mother and daughter are forced to navigate their patriarchal society in a bid for self-affirmation and survival. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, Haroun’s “Lingui, The Sacred Bonds” is a rich pro-choice meditation told in intimate detail. 

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For Haroun, “Lingui” marks a change in interest. Usually enamored by male-centered stories of loss, disintegrating family ties, and dreams deferred—in this film, he alters his aim toward a woman-led story. His talent for patiently measuring out character dynamics, thankfully, does not diminish. In the early going, he focuses on Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane). Drenched in sweat, totally concentrated on her craft, she strips metal from old tires, weaving them into cone-shaped cooking stoves to sell in the local market. 

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Rather than enveloping Anima in an immediate story, Haroun allows the environment’s inherent instability to slowly take hold. For one, the single mother lives in an area where the mosque dominates everyday life. And yet, much to the consternation of her patriarchal community, she’s avoided attending. Instead of being married, she also chooses to be single, turning down the advances of her pining, soft-spoken neighbor Brahim (Youssouf Djaoro). Both decisions make her a social pariah in the tight-knit enclave. 

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While these are systemic conflicts, they are not the sole draw. See, Anima can’t put her finger on it, but her 15-year old daughter Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio) has been distant and irritable. Days pass before she stumbles onto Maria’s secret: She’s pregnant. Who the father is, is a morsel Haroun withholds for a larger meal later on. But the immediate aftermath sees Maria expelled from school for her loose morals and Anima working to keep her daughter’s pregnancy confidential. Anima, therefore, is presented with two options: Allow Maria to live as a single mother, a social pariah like herself, or renege on her Muslim religion and opt for an abortion.

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Through their mother-daughter relationship, Haroun delicately excavates the systematic restrictions placed on women in Chad, such as abortions being illegal and usually carried out in safe houses. He further covers the ways women are expected to conform to strict religious dogmas, with their sexual freedom demoralized. And how at a young age, they’re ordered by their fathers to be circumcised (or, in starker terms: undergo genital mutilation).

In covering these heady topics, Haroun never loses sight of developing these gripping characters. Not only do Maria and Anima re-bond. Anima gains a new lease on life, reconnecting with the family who shunned her and untethering herself from the misogynistic figures in her community. Haroun’s naturalistic style paradoxically takes center stage by remaining in the background. I can scarcely recall a score to this film or an overt editing choice. That’s not a knock against the veteran filmmaker. It demonstrates how his invisible hooks can find their ways into the viewer without calling attention to himself. In fact, every time I watch his films, from “Abouna” to “A Season in France,” I always feel a sense of becoming, wherein the narrative is so open it carries a sense of incompleteness only to abruptly shock me with its sudden emotional truthfulness.    

Haroun does the same by once again relying on his actors to carry the day. Both Souleymane and Alio give enrapturing performances, carving out their external spaces, physically defined by their standoffish distance from one another, while allowing their internal stories, the years of oppression they’ve felt at the hands of others, to bubble to the surface. The approach makes “Lingui” an incredible acting showcase.              

Having said that, even with the urgency of the narrative and the immersive acting, the development of the thematic beats read a tad flat. A big revelation toward the end contorts the film, ushering in a few violent swings. But it’s the unearned celebratory ending that makes one question if Haroun has anything to say about these women and others like them. Or if he aimed to record the broad thematic strokes of their existence without hazarding to provide a real perspective. The bones for a deeper explication of religion and country are here, but Haroun just doesn’t have the experienced voice to delve beneath the surface.

For the acclaimed Chadian filmmaker, “Lingui,” his first foray into women-driven stories wobbles with underdevelopment but still manages to be a harrowing tale of bodily freedom. [B]   

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