Abderrahmane Sissako's Waiting for Happiness is a profoundly melancholy and visually lovely film that captures the poky pace and transitory nature of life in Nouadhibou, a port city in Mauritania. The town is bordered by the ocean, with its huge, long-abandoned grounded ships on one side, and the desert, with its colossal and foreboding dunes, on the other. People from many parts of the world pass through the town on their way to somewhere else, deeply affecting the lives of the long-time residents. There are moments of humor in the film, in the relationship between an old electrician and his spirited young charge, and in the culture clash encountered by a young student on his way out of the country. There are also quiet moments of sadness that seemingly engulf the entire town. While the electrician struggles to bring a spark of modernity to the remote parts of the village, a young girl learns gorgeous traditional songs from her mother. Sissako's slender narrative takes its time reaching its ambiguous conclusion. The essential humanity of the characters shines through, and the passion of the filmmaker rewards the patient viewer.