review for Adanggaman on AllMovie

Some may consider Adanggaman controversial because of its subject matter, but it's also a fairly engrossing drama about a man, Ossei (Ziable Honore Goore Bi), who faces a series of difficult circumstances. We see early in the film that Ossei refuses to submit to an arranged marriage despite a beating by his fellow villagers for his intransigence; he is a strong-willed and somewhat impetuous person who has fought for his freedom even before his first encounter with slave traders. The film is told mostly from his perspective, so the audience shares his anger and sense of moral outrage toward his opponents and particularly toward King Adanggaman (Rasmane Ouedraogo), the greedy, dictatorial slave trader who reaped the profits of the raid on Ossei's village. The film's plot isn't particularly complex and its pace isn't particularly fast, but the story is told in a reasonably compelling manner, particularly in the first two-thirds of the movie. The acting is first-rate, including a noteworthy performance by Albertine N'Guessan as Ossei's mother Mo Akassi; the warm, radiant photography conveys the humanity of the enslaved villagers while the long shots and long takes of their forced marches effectively convey their degradation; and the combination of well-chosen silence, natural ambient sound, and Lokua Kanzi's affecting djembe, kalimba, and chant score effectively underpins the brutality that's depicted onscreen. While Adanggaman tugs at the audience's heartstrings on a few occasions, the movie is a lot less melodramatic and sentimental than it could have been; indeed, one reason why the film's depiction of slavery is so disturbing is because it is so matter of fact. Unfortunately, the movie loses some of its narrative momentum once Ossei enlist's Naka's (Mylene-Perside Boti Kouame) assistance. Also, Roger Gnoan M'Bala deserves credit for addressing the complicity of Africans in the slave trade, but he doesn't raise a lot of complex moral issues beyond pointing out this historical fact; there's no doubt that slavery is bad, Adanggamon is an evil person, and Ossei's goal of freeing his mother is noble. Adanggamon may have been more interesting if the latter part of the film had explored another aspect of the slave trade, such as the social conditions in West Africa that led to slavery or the relationship between the African traders and their European clients. Instead, the filmmakers settled for a somewhat simplistic approach to the topic. It's still a fairly compelling film, however.