Adam, a former National Swimming Champion, is the proud manger of the pool at a smart hotel in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, where he has worked for the past 30 years. Known by all simply as’ Champ’, he now has his grown up son Abdel working as he Assistant so all is right in his wee world, until the new Chinese Owners of the Hotel demote him to a lowly Gatekeeper and promote his son to now take charge. The country is in the throes of yet another civil war and the Authorities demand that the population contribute to the ‘war effort’ one way or another and so Champ, now desperately broke and depressed, allows the army to forcibly conscript his son instead. At the same time his 17-year-old pregnant girlfriend that Adel had been secretly dating turns up at the family home, and Champ knows he must try and undo the harm that he has inflicted on them all.
This gentle but quite profound movie is by Chadian filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun who has lived through decades of political violence, numerous attempted coupe d’etat and several civil wars since the country gained its independence in 1960. I’m assuming that this very personal film‘s story that focuses on all the repercussions of the upheaval at the Pool is actually a metaphor of the tragedy that is facing Chad. It took me some time and some prodding to reach that conclusion as I was intrigued to research why this particular title was chosen when no body was actually screaming out loud at all. Now I can see Mr. Haroun’s thinking it is Champ who is screaming much louder inside.
It is in fact one of those films that do resonate with you some time after viewing. As a piece of fine story telling, it is wonderfully sad. As a comment of one the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, it is a great deal more than that.
