MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Brightness’ Fills Screen With Magic and Haunting Beauty

Director Souleymane Cisse has filled “Brightness” (at the Nuart today through Wednesday), a film rooted in the myths of his native Mali, with magic--magical beliefs, magical occurrences and his own magical touch with the non-professionals he chooses as his actors.

The result is a haunting and ravishingly beautiful film, set in a time before the coming of Europeans to this African country three times larger than France, but spilling over with mythic elements that would make Jung nod in recognition: fire, water, the journey, the protection of the mother, the struggle between father and son, the assertion of identity.

Not a film for everyone--Cisse is the first to point out that his films come from an entirely different cinematic aesthetic than ours--it is absolutely one for those who can give themselves over to other visions of their world: for those on the wavelengths of Andrei Tarkovsky, of Terence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” or Marcel Carne’s enveloping “Children of Paradise.”

The young hero (Issiaka Kane), strong, modest and entirely unconscious of his own beauty, is from the Bambara people, son of a father (Niamanto Sanogo) so jealous that his son’s power will someday equal his that he plans to kill him. His wife (Soumba Traore), who describes him as “a terror,” has kept the boy apart from his father but now that her adolescent son is approaching manhood, she can do nothing more than give him a crystal to protect him and send him off to seek help from his uncle.

These crystals, as we see in the opening, are dazzling, dangerous prisms for the purifying rays of light. One of them, set in a tall, carved fetish-object, can work with the power of a laser.

Meanwhile, the boy’s father, who is certainly both noisy and dangerous, comes closer and closer, his servants staggering under a huge wrapped post or magic pestle, a divining rod for lost people or things. (These hapless servants are almost Shakespearean semi-comic relief.)

The young man’s journey is, of course, initiation: If he succeeds, he will be granted the special knowledge of the Bambaras for mastering the forces that surround them. They’re pretty impressive powers: Already he can freeze an adversary in place or rout an opposing army by summoning insects or the elements.

Trying to cure the barrenness of the youngest and most beautiful of the wives of the King of Peul, however, becomes too much of a strain on his innate reticence. The results, which could have been lethal, are touched with sadness and by the king’s certain, ineffable knowledge of the world.

The charm of “Brightness” isn’t simply its universality or the singular beauty of a magic ceremony, a marsh at sunset or even a carved ritual bowl. It’s the sly humor and self-effacing nobility of Cisse’s actors, all of them non-professionals before the director crossed their paths, now or on earlier films. The little child who closes the film is, fittingly, the director’s own son, Youssouf Tenin Cisse.

“Brightness” (“Yeelen”) (Times-rated Mature for fleeting nudity, adult subjects) was filmed in the Malian villages of Dilly, Moutoungoula, Falani, Dra, Drani, Sangha and Hombon, and if the names aren’t enough to make one want to see them, the film should start a stampede for the place. Alas, it exists in this enchanted form only through the eyes of a cinema magician such as Cisse.

‘BRIGHTNESS’ (‘YEELEN’)

Director, writer, producer Souleymane Cisse. In Bambara with English subtitles. Released by Cisse films. Camera Jean-Noel Farragut, Jean-Michel Humeau. Editors Dounamba Coulibaly, Andree Davanture, Marie-Catherine Miqueau, Jenny Frenck, Seipati N’Xumalo. Original sound track Michel Portal, with the participation of Salif Keita. Sound Daniel Olivier, Michel Mellier. Sets, costumes Kossa Mody Keita. Special effects Frederic Duru, Nicos Metelopoulos. With Issiaka Kane, Aoua Sangare, Niamanto Sanogo, Balla Moussa Keita, Souba Traore, Ismaila Sarr, Youssouf Tenin Cisse.

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Times-rated: Mature.