Afro-French family history “Dao”: This is how exuberant the children of the diaspora celebrate

And that’s usually enough until the next milestone anniversary in ten years. With his sixth feature film “Dao,” which celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale in February (and inexplicably came away empty-handed), the Franco-Senegalese director Alain Gomis (“Félicité”) sacrificed the traditional family celebration dramaturgy of encounter, conflict and catharsis for a principle from Taoist emptiness.

The idea of ​​“Dao,” explains a text panel at the beginning of the film, describes a continuous circular movement that flows through the world and connects everything together. In Gomis’ case, this non-linear connection not only bridges time and continents, but also the narrative attitude. Two celebrations are at the center of “Dao,” around which its episodes and plot motifs revolve.

Gloria (Katy Correa) travels with her daughter Nour (D’Johé Kouadio) to her late father’s village in Guinea-Bissau to say goodbye to him in a ceremony lasting several days. For Nour, who was born in France, it is the first contact with this part of the family history. Parallel to this journey, “Dao” tells the story of Nour’s wedding celebration at a sophisticated country estate outside of Paris, where the family members from Africa and the European diaspora come together again after a long time.

It’s not just the locations that could hardly be more different. The parallel stories also form different perspectives on the concept of “family”, which Gomis brings together on a third level. “Dao” begins with a casting situation in a plain room.

The director explains in a voiceover that he is looking for a real “fake family” that draws on the personal experiences of the actresses. This is where Correa and Kouadio meet for the first time; By playing together, they should negotiate and develop their mother-daughter relationship. But are the reservations that the “mother” has about her “daughter’s” wedding to James (Mike Etienne) just an improvisation, or are personal feelings also mixed into the performance?

These documentary ambivalences keep the two family gatherings at a distance, where the past is discussed and the family story is told as a departure. The ghosts of the past are present, not only in the rituals of the traditional village community, but also in the memories of those born afterward. Gloria’s father, Louis Mendy, once left his village to build a new life in France. He later left his family there and went back to Guinea-Bissau. The memories are overshadowed, clouded.

The migration biographies of the family members and friends at Nour’s wedding are disconnected from these beginnings in an African village for generations, but this feeling of alienation is inscribed in the experience in the diaspora. The clash of cultures, traditional images of men and modern women, the different success stories of cultural assimilation and the traditional narrative of having “made it” in Europe with a well-running business (or a white girlfriend) is played out in arguments, in improvised football games, in playful re-enactments of family conflicts and in dance. People and their characters merge in Gomis’ film, as do sadness and joy.

Gomis weaves the two rituals in a rousing parallel montage into a single flow that connects past and present, comedy and drama, traditional and pop music, the stories of two continents and those of subsequent generations. In Guinea-Bissau, Nour strolls through the city and stops in front of a monument that commemorates the slave trade between Africa and Europe. At her wedding reception, she leaves the property at night and wanders through the forest accompanied by James.

“Dao” is about transmitting memories to create something new. At some point, as mother Gloria finally realizes, the children of the diaspora will have to have their own experiences.