The stories we tell are not always our real stories. Sometimes, we spend so much time with the stories we tell that we risk losing our real story. Such is the case in Souleymane’s Story, from director Boris Lojkine. Souleymane’s Story won the Jury Award and Best Actor in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes film festival as well as the FIPRESCI Prize.
Souleymane (Abou Sangare) is a Guinean immigrant struggling to survive in Paris while his application for asylum is pending. He spends most of his time riding his bike around town delivering food. He spends each night in a homeless shelter. He also meets with a coach helping him tell his story for his upcoming meeting with immigration official that can make or break his chance to stay in France.
We soon figure out that the story he is practicing is really a fiction. It is a story about political persecution that he really didn’t face. He is trying to learn details that might convince an interviewer that what he is telling is true. Meanwhile, he struggles with those who are happy to take advantage of his uncertain status—which includes his coach and the person whose delivery service account he’s renting.
Souleymane is one of a long line of people who go to strange lands seeking a new or better life. (For biblical examples, consider Abraham, Moses, or Ruth.) His story is not one that is confined to France or Europe. America has long had immigrants who have come. The concept includes not only foreign immigrants, but sometimes internal migration, such as during the Dust Bowl. The process of coming to a new land is never easy. The challenges Souleymane faces may make us wonder why he is so determined—especially since (until the end) we don’t know his real story.
When that story comes out (in the immigration interview, where a sympathetic interviewer coaxes it out of him), we see his true story as far more compelling of our compassion than the made-up story that he thinks the officials want to hear.
The film certainly speaks to questions about immigration, especially about the treatment and sometimes exploitation of immigrants. But at a deeper level, this is a story about truth. Souleymane has spent so much time learning and imperfectly polishing the fictional account of who he is that he has almost lost touch with the real person who has come to find a new and fulfilling life. After he tells his real story, he has again found himself. It is that true self that will enable him to face the life ahead of him, regardless of the outcome of the interview.
Souleymane’s Story is in select theaters.
Photos courtesy of Kino Lorber.
