Waiting for Happiness (2002)
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Waiting for Happiness Movie Review
Waiting for Happiness is a 2002 Mauritanian drama film directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. It is a very elegant and poetic, but far from great movie.
Before immigrating to the West, Abdallah travels to the coastal city of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, to visit his mother. Although he grew up there, Abdallah feels anything but at home in his old neighborhood: He can no longer speak the local dialect, and he wears western clothes that immediately cast him as an outsider. But, as Abdallah spends time with a young boy and an elderly electrician, he can’t help but feel a sense of loss for the life he’s abandoning.
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When it comes to the movies directed by Sissako, I prefer his Malian movie ‘Bamako’ to both this one or ‘Timbuktu’. This is certainly one of his most artistic endeavors, but I prefer substance over style myself and this movie is clearly sitting in the opposite camp. He is the most important Mauritanian filmmaker and he definitely gave a lot of importance and authenticity to the cinema of this country, but it’s a shame that this film failed to connect on a larger scale.
Basically, what you have here is a series of plot points that are mostly highly minimalist in dialogue. Couple that with a large cast of characters and you’ve got a film that is at times not that easy to understand, but it does feel culturally unique as it brings all these different voices to the proceedings.
The characterization suffered as a result of the high character count, though the acting performances are uniformly solid. Waiting for Happiness is at its best in the cinematography, production design and directing, all top-notch, making for a rather cinematic viewing experience. It genuinely reminded me of reading a book due to its thematic resonance and how it painted all these different situations and this particular place and time.
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However, it’s still a very slow movie that isn’t engaging in any shape or form. It needed a stronger message and through line as it’s almost too ambitious for its own right. It also felt scattershot a bit as the editing made it hectic and disorganized.
Waiting for Happiness is expectedly well directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. It is a very poetic, elegantly constructed movie that is episodic in nature and reminiscent of a novel in its higher character count and disorganized editing for better and for worse. It needed a stronger through line and more engaging pacing, but its artistic sensibilities are admirable.
My Rating – 3.5
