On its surface, Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot’s Saloum is an amalgamation of various cinematic influences and iconography, combining Action, Horror and (Spaggetti) Western genre elements to form a rather unique 90-minute thriller concerning a trio of mysterious Senegalese mercenaries whose vigilante exploits take them into the dark heart of the African landscape and its mythology. Beginning with the real-life coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau in 2003, we meet Chaka, Rafa and Minuit having been contracted to extract a drug dealer and his amassed fortune of gold bricks to a safe zone beyond the deteriorating country’s borders. Narrowly avoiding death in their apparently sabotaged plane – the three men, known in whispers and rumour as Bangui’s Hyenas – abandon their downed aircraft and journey on-foot to the remote region of Saloum, a place shrouded in legend and superstition.
Leader of the gang , Chaka (Yann Gael), grew up in this region, and quickly takes advantage of a local resort and its apparently hospitable leader Omar, whom Chaka claims to remember from his childhood despite the older man’s uncertainty. Free to stay as long as they please and only asked to complete housekeeping chores alongside the assortment of other guests, the Hyenas lay low at this resort, attempting to blend in whilst simultaneously enjoying the company of women, booze and a place to rest. Tensions at the camp begin to rise, however, when it becomes clear that not everyone is who they claim to be, the Hyenas included, and whilst taking up a chance to deliver supplies to another local encampment where mostly mute villagers appear to bear the scars of some kind of torture upon their ears, Chaka and his friends quickly become entrapped in a situation surrounded by potentially demonic forces.
Following a tense Mexican stand-off straight out of a Leone flick, this unexpected third-act detour into the supernatural quickly justifies and explains its distribution from the Horror channel/platform Shudder, marking an inventive and compelling volte-face that brilliantly revises the assumed authority of Chaka’s Hyenas and his motivations as leader. It also re-writes the film in a brilliantly captivating way, forcing us to adapt like our protagonists to this shocking new predicament much like From Dusk till Dawn did back in 1996. It is arguably in this third act blitzkrieg of genre filmmaking that Saloum either lives or dies, with its indie budget becoming all the more apparent in its admirable, if imperfect, employment of VFX. But its charm and novelty as a mix of different genres and influences filtered through a culture and mythology unfamiliar to me, was enough for me to get on board right away and enjoy Saloum as an engagingly confident hybrid effort from a ‘one to watch’ director. Announcing both its cinematic influences and its hyper-stylised tone, the tagline for the film should tell you all you need to know, reading: ‘Once upon a time in Africa’. Here’s hoping Herbulot has more tales to tell.
Notes from the Multiplex 