User Reviews

"Le franc" is a 44-minute short film from over 20 years ago. The writer and director is the late Djibril Diop Mambéty, one of Africa's most famous filmmakers in the last 50 years. This was his second short film (the first was already from the 1960s) and it was also one of his last works before his death to cancer. This is actually a live action fictional movie, but I have to say it felt a lot more like a documentary about Africa to me, because of the music, the culture, the people etc. depicted in here. I did not really care about the protagonist, to me this was much more about the general atmosphere. Still, I felt that at almost 45 minutes there was too little content and it was a case of style over substance. And I was not familiar with the actors either, probably because most of them appeared in this film and never before or after again in a movie. I hope the director's other films are better and this one I only recommend to those who really love Africa and also traveled there several times already.