Nine years after his extraordinary look at the long arm of Jihadism in Timbuktu, the film that made Mauritania-born Abderrahmane Sissako one of Africa’s most significant filmmakers, earning multiple awards and an Oscar nomination, the director returns to feature films with a sporadically intriguing but ultimately disappointing interracial love story, Black Tea, which is likely to keep even his fans at a distance.
Featuring one of the most engagingly modern heroines in Berlin this year, and a tale of great originality and timeliness, Black Tea should have been another landmark in the director’s career. But its pleasures are continually interrupted by awkward editing and narration that jump confusingly between characters and countries, stories and moods. It also suffers from a lack of reference points that would guide audiences through where they are, what is happening onscreen, and whether a scene is to be considered dream or reality or some new kind of modernist storytelling. Urgent re-editing and a few explanatory intertitles would go a long way towards focusing the story on its main characters and their stories.
In an opening scene set in the hot, bright sunshine of an unspecified African country, multiple couples in bridal finery are gathered to get married. It is instantly clear that something is wrong with Aya (Nina Mélo) and her husband-to-be Toussaint; an angry quarrel on the verge of explosion over who knows what. When it is their turn to tie the knot, he says “I do” (loud applause from the assembled guests) and she says “no” (stunned shock).
Cue the first confusing transition that takes us from Africa to China. Aya marches emotionally down the crowded streets of a market, shedding her bridal costume piece by piece until she’s in a bright street dress. There are many Asian faces in the market along with the Africans we would expect – in fact (as we piece together much later) Aya has moved to Guangzhou, a Chinese metropolis north of Hong Kong, and she now works in an upscale tea supply shop owned by the divorced Mr. Cai (Chang Han). How long has she been part of the African diaspora and living in the colorful, friendly neighborhood the locals call “Chocolate City”? Is it a surprise that Aya speaks fluent Mandarin? Or that she has a fantastic sense of smell and an instinctive feeling for fine tea blends? And how long has she been making trips to the cellar with Cai, where he initiates the young woman into the traditional art of the tea ceremony, a complex affair not devoid of erotic undertones?
Their relationship remains a bit of a mystery throughout, but it seems to be progressing in the direction of love and marriage each time he invites her to the back room of an atmospheric tea house, where they can talk freely. On one occasion he talks about his ex-wife, Ying (Wu Ke-Xi), the mother of Li-Ben, who works in the store with his dad. On another he shows Aya a picture of his daughter Eva, who moved to Cape Verde twenty years prior with her mother. Aya urges him to get in touch with the girl, which he appears to do, but the Cape Verde scene is so unreal that Cai probably dreamed it.
Other narrative detours further derail the main train. Aya knows a lot of people in the neighborhood, and each one seems to have a story worth telling: a Chinese girl who sells suitcases across the street can’t find a husband; an African girl who suddenly pops up is sadly heading back home, having achieved none of her dreams in Guangzhou, and so on.
Sissako brings the film back on track in a climactic moment-of-truth scene set in Cai’s refined apartment. He and Aya are happily relaxing in the bedroom with a glass of wine when the doorbell rings and he suddenly remembers he’s hosting Li-Ben’s birthday dinner. Aya has bought the boy a gift but she’s not invited, because his racist grandparents are coming over with Ying and “they might not accept you,” he says in embarrassment. It’s a devastating side of Cai’s personality she had never seen before and she takes it on the chin. Perhaps she should have married her faithless Toussaint after all?
Although many of the characters in Black Tea seem put there to make a point about something, or to typify life in the mixed-race pockets of China, the two leads escape this pigeon-holing. As the 30-ish Aya, French actress Nina Mélo rises to the refinement the role demands, both as a student of tea and a courageous expatriate and independent woman who chooses her partners carefully, the way Cai picks tea leaves on a glorious trip to his plantation. Her friends keep calling her a “good woman” for her warm heart, selflessness and respect towards other people’s feelings. That is why she is able to offer good advice to them. Yet in the end, she is left with her own massive disillusionment with men.
Both Chang Han and Wu Ke-Xi are established actors from Taiwan, where the film was largely shot on location. Aged for the role, Chang Han expresses a winning inner grace and stillness – which unfortunately doesn’t preclude his cowardly reaction to a difficult social situation. As his ex Ying, Wu Ke-Xi portrays a woman of dignity and principles, much like Aya, who she might be friends with if the situation had been different.
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Screenwriters: Kessen Fatoumata Tall, Abderrahmane Sissako
Producers: David Gauquié, Julien Derys, Denis Freyd, Kessen Fatoumata Tall, Jean-Luc Ormières, Charles S. Cohen
Cast: Nina Mélo, Chang Han, Wu Ke-Xi, Michael Chang
Cinematography: Aymerick Pilarski
Production design: Véronique Sacrez
Costume design:
Editing: Nadia Ben Rachid
Music: Armand Amar
Sound: Nicolas Leroy, Loic Collignon
Sound design: Carlo Thoss
Production companies: Cinéfrance Studios (France), Archipel 35 (France), Dune Vision (Mauritania)
World sales: Gaumont
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Competition)
In Mandarin, French, English, Portuguese
111 minutes
