In theaters this Wednesday, October 9, “The Story of Souleymane” by Boris Lojkine sticks us in the wheel of an undocumented bicycle delivery man forty-eight hours before a crucial meeting for him. A dive into a hidden reality that is all the more dizzying as the remarkable main actor finds himself in the same delicate situation as his character.
In forty-eight hours, Souleymane has a decisive interview for his future. In forty-eight hours, he has an appointment at the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra). Until then, he must learn his story by heart, finally the one which will ensure, he has been assured in return for funds, the acceptance of his asylum request. So he repeats this story again and again. But he struggles to hold on to it. His mind is elsewhere. To his survival.
An undocumented Guinean in Paris, he works as a bicycle delivery man, subletting an account for a percentage of his meager income. Not a minute to waste, the customer must be satisfied or he is the one making the toast, so it doesn’t matter if it rains, it doesn’t matter if the light turns red, it doesn’t matter if he gets hit by a car, he must that he delivers on time, no matter how impossible the deadlines!
To this obsession with the schedule, so feared by delivery men and so appreciated by customers who like to use the pathetic little power it grants them over the world, to the humiliations that he must endure without raising his head but with politeness and courtesy. if not to lose his precarious source of subsistence, Souleymane must also add the fear of being arrested and the anxiety of missing the last evening bus which will take him to the reception center, otherwise at the risk of sleeping in the street… In short, Souleymane’s daily life is a constant race against time.
To account for this, director Boris Lojkine, who comes from documentaries, chooses the relentless effectiveness of the thriller whose breathtaking pace never weakens. Neither dolorist drama nor political tract, The Story of Souleymane is thus in the image of its title: it shares with us without embellishment, with our nose to the handlebars, at ground level, the journey of a man and suggests in the same effort which is the key: a potentially salutary lie for him, an opportunely voluntary ignorance for us.
Not content with taking your breath away when you watch it, this fantastic film also takes your breath away from reflection: it is released in France at a time when some are agitating the fantasy of migratory submersion and others are outdoing it with words of firmness and closing.
Meanwhile, Abou Sangaré, with moving grace in the role of Souleymane for which he received the acting prize from the jury of Un certain regard (which also awarded the film an award), in Cannes, his request for asylum in France was refused three times. At Ofpra, he told the story of a 23-year-old Guinean, living in Amiens for seven years, a trained mechanic, whose promise of permanent employment is suspended until he obtains his papers. His story. Abu’s story.
