CIFF24: "African Giants" - Film Review
A lot can happen over the course of a long weekend. In African Giants, Sekhu (Omete Anassi) is visiting his older brother, Alhaji (Dillon Daniel Mutyaba), in Los Angeles for the first time. Sekhu is studying law at Georgetown University and has an incredible internship offer waiting to be accepted. Alhaji is also on a precipice. He’s been working as an actor for many years without much success, but his agent assures him that he’s days away from landing a massive movie. With both brothers having reasons to celebrate, their weekend should be a joyful one, but as they reminisce on their childhoods, secrets come to light that could permanently damage their relationship.
african giants
There are moments in African Giants that feel organic, like the audience is eavesdropping on two real brothers who are reconnecting after spending time apart. The chemistry between Anassi and Mutyaba is at times lived-in, familiar, and genuine. At other times, the brothers are just monologuing back and forth to each other instead of having a conversation that flows naturally. Part of this likely stems from the script. It jumps from topic to topic in an awkward fashion, forcing the brothers to recount memories from their childhood the other surely remembers, but explaining them for the sake of the audience. This creates a divide between the viewer and the siblings and forces the audience to be reminded that this is a movie.
There’s not much room to breathe within African Giants. Even other movies that are dialogue-heavy and center on two people walking around a city (the Before Trilogy) have moments of stillness. In African Giants, the only time there isn’t a running dialogue is in the montages that happen a little too frequently throughout. The script does far more telling than it does showing, and it doesn’t allow Anassi or Mutyaba to bring nuance to their characters. Every feeling and thought is vocalized, to the detriment of character development and expression. When the inevitable lesson is learned, it isn’t sincere in the way that it could have been with a little more script polishing.
african giants
African Giants works best as a complicated family drama that plays out between two brothers who share decades of love, anger, and memories. It also gives voice to the experiences of the children of immigrant parents who are torn between national identities. Sheku and Alhaji awkwardly stumble into meaningful conversations about being Black in America and how they’re treated differently because their family didn’t come to the United States as slaves. They discuss the expectations of their parents, of each other, and how those expectations can be as stifling as they are encouraging.
As a debut feature, African Giants stands tall. Even though the script can be heavy-handed at times, there’s a genuine heart beating underneath that allows the audience to forgive some of the more stilted lines. The film is an earnest look at how strange it is to be a sibling. To have someone who you’ve shared decades of history with, who shares some of your DNA, and who has been your best friend and sworn enemy in almost the same breath. It’s a relationship that’s extremely difficult to capture, but African Giants understands the push and pull of the sibling dynamic. Complemented by gorgeous cinematography, African Giants is an ode to brotherly love and a reminder that we are capable of growing up.
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