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Everyone that Souleymane (Abou Sangare) encounters has an angle. The Guinean immigrant is nothing if not a hustler, zipping by way of the streets of Paris on his bicycle making meals deliveries in any respect hours of the night time in an effort to scrape collectively the funds to purchase some asylum papers to current to OFPRA (the French Workplace for the Safety of Refugees and Stateless Individuals). However whereas he has surrounded himself with a neighborhood of African immigrants who’re theoretically prepared to information him by way of the method, all people’s service comes with a value. And the providers themselves are nothing to brag about.
With out authorized citizenship, he’s unable to make his personal account on any of the meals supply apps — so an acquaintance is sweet sufficient to let Souleymane use his, taking 50 % of the income for his troubles whereas Souleymane does one hundred pc of the work. He additionally pays to be coached for his upcoming immigration interview, although he’s given the questionable recommendation to manufacture sob tales about being attacked by political enemies in an effort to acquire asylum — that’s, when he’s not being shaken down for much more cash. Life is tough sufficient for an unhoused, undocumented gig economic system employee simply making an attempt to make ends meet, however his largest drawback is likely to be the slew of grifters nickel and diming him out of each penny he has.
Boris Lojkine’s new movie “Souleymane’s Story” follows its eponymous immigrant over the course of two days main as much as his asylum interview with OFPRA. A simple social realist drama, it invokes the traditions of movies like “I, Daniel Blake” and “Tori and Lokita” by illustrating the Sisyphean duties that susceptible individuals will be subjected to whereas navigating the federal government bureaucracies which might be ostensibly supposed to assist them. However it additionally applies a contemporary contact to the subgenre by putting the distinctive challenges posed by the gig economic system entrance and middle.
Delivering meals on his bike is the one type of revenue accessible to Souleymane, however racing by way of Paris visitors on chilly, moist nights is the least of his issues. He navigates painfully sluggish eating places, fickle clients who cancel orders on a whim, and aged clients who don’t perceive the brand new safety code system that his service has carried out. All of those exterior delays ding his score with the app’s omnipotent algorithm, which may result in suspensions and delayed funds of cash that he has already promised to individuals throughout city. The supply sequences are virtually Sean Baker-esque of their depictions of the ways in which poverty can flip the best of errands right into a screwball comedy when every part appears to go flawed for you at each minute of the day.
“Souleymane’s Story” doesn’t blaze any trails that we haven’t seen earlier than, and it generally will get too deep within the weeds of French immigration regulation for its personal good, buying and selling an excessive amount of universality for specificity when rather less element would have made the identical level extra successfully. However it however delivers precisely what its title guarantees: One man’s story as he navigates the entire ups and downs of the 2 largest days of his life earlier than pleading his case to stay in France. Sangare embodies the character with an appropriately battered resilience, whereas Lokjine and co-writer Delphine Agut hit him with problem after problem that really feel stunning and inevitable on the identical time.
Typically Souleymane seems like he’s sprinting by way of a race with no end line, and generally he’s operating into an unmovable brick wall. The movie exists within the area between these opposing outcomes, and its contradictions turn out to be its best energy because it depicts the infinite exhaustion of navigating a system that doesn’t care about you almost as a lot because it claims to.
Grade: B-
A Kino Lorber launch, “Souleymane’s Story” opens in theaters on Friday, August 1.
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