They share the bare rooms, sleeping on thin mattresses, pulling up plastic chairs into companionable knots around the TV to watch Rey Mysterio take on another WWE opponent. Arrivals from Benin and Burkina Faso meet stranded travelers from the towns of Bamako and Bordj Badji Mokhtar. In another film, his tireless work on the migrants’ behalf would be heroized.īut here, the story is less of one man’s endeavors than of the collective comings and goings and brief encounters that happen between the House’s institutional-aqua-blue walls. Even the House’s genial manager, Eric Alain Kamdem, who greets the new arrivals, advises them, helps them with forms and onward travel, cuts their hair and listens to their stories, is peripheral. Natacha, a quiet and prayerful middle-aged woman has been at Caritas for five years - we’re never quite sure why - passing the days playing chess and dice games by herself. Mariko, who has visions of a woman at his window, whom he wants to marry and bring with him to Europe. It’s only incidentally that we even learn their names: Esther, a 16-year-old girl from Burkina Faso who dreams of going to Algeria with her companion, Kadi. His voice is never heard, his presence never felt, there is no scripted narration and no onscreen titling to introduce us to his subjects. Samassékou’s approach, inspired by an uncle who left for Germany 32 years ago and vanished somewhere en route, is itself distant.
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