Stars: Yann Gael Loro, Roger Sallah, Mentor Ba, Renaud Farah, Bruno Henry, Evelyne Ily Juhen, Ndiaga Mbow | Written and Directed by Jean Luc Herbulot
I almost managed to see the Senegalese export Saloum on the big screen last year, before some schedule shuffling got in the way. Watching it now I wish I had managed to see it, and not just because of Gregory Corandi’s (Le Banc) cinematography. Writer/director Jean Luc Herbulot has fashioned a genre-jumping film that would be perfect to watch with an audience.
Saloum opens with a voice thoughtfully contemplating the nature of revenge before abruptly shifting to the scene of a massacre as the mercenaries known as The Bangui Hyenas, Chaka (Yann Gael Loro), Rafa (Roger Sallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) are finishing off anyone who might still be alive while uptempo dance music plays.
It’s 2003 and as a coup throws Guinea-Bissau into...
I almost managed to see the Senegalese export Saloum on the big screen last year, before some schedule shuffling got in the way. Watching it now I wish I had managed to see it, and not just because of Gregory Corandi’s (Le Banc) cinematography. Writer/director Jean Luc Herbulot has fashioned a genre-jumping film that would be perfect to watch with an audience.
Saloum opens with a voice thoughtfully contemplating the nature of revenge before abruptly shifting to the scene of a massacre as the mercenaries known as The Bangui Hyenas, Chaka (Yann Gael Loro), Rafa (Roger Sallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) are finishing off anyone who might still be alive while uptempo dance music plays.
It’s 2003 and as a coup throws Guinea-Bissau into...
- 9/9/2022
- by Jim Morazzini
- Nerdly
The infamous “Hyenas”—three mercenaries running amok throughout Africa—are caught in the air with gold bars, the drug lord (Renaud Farah’s Felix) they’ve been hired to extract, and a failed fuel tank leaving them with bad and worse options for an emergency landing. The Guinea-Bissau authorities won’t let them leave without a fight on the ground and they’ve surely alerted their Senegalese counterparts already, but Chaka (Yann Gael) knows of a secret beach from his past where they might be able to lay low and find the materials to repair their plane’s damage. Rafa (Roger Sallah), the muscle to Chaka’s brains, doesn’t like the idea while Minuit’s (Mentor Ba) mysticism has him believing their leader is hiding come crucial details, but they follow him just the same.
Where they ultimately arrive looks like any seaside waystation despite these lingering notions that...
Where they ultimately arrive looks like any seaside waystation despite these lingering notions that...
- 9/18/2021
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Revenge is a dish served with considerable style and imagination in “Saloum,” a fast and furious crime-horror-thriller that twists and turns its way around the mangroves, islets and inlets of Senegal’s Sine-Saloum coastal region. Centered on a trio of mercenaries holed up in a strange holiday camp that harbors a diabolical secret, the second feature by Congolese filmmaker Jean Luc Herbulot freely mixes and marries the cinematic languages of spaghetti Westerns, samurai dramas and classic monster movies to tell an exciting and distinctly African story. There’s not much else in Senegalese cinema to compare with “Saloum,” which is bound to be in high demand on the festival circuit and has the sheer entertainment value to enjoy a successful commercial life thereafter.
Part of a small but growing wave of African genre cinema to attract international exposure, “Saloum” marks a winning start to feature production for Lacme Studios, the...
Part of a small but growing wave of African genre cinema to attract international exposure, “Saloum” marks a winning start to feature production for Lacme Studios, the...
- 9/15/2021
- by Richard Kuipers
- Variety Film + TV
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