Before his untimely death in 2019, the Luxembourgish director Pol Cruchten was about to commence a new project. He had enlisted the help of fellow documentarian and photographer Fabrizio Maltese as his cinematographer for a journey to and around Mauritania. The idea was that the country would be shown to them by native filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, with whom Cruchten had struck up a fast friendship. Sadly, before they could embark on their expedition, Cruchten passed away. Determined not to allow his final vision to go entirely unrealised, the production team decided to proceed with the trip with Maltese taking over directorial duties. The result, The Invitation, is a curious and compelling travelogue that manages to do justice to the originally intended journey of discovery while also being haunted by the ethereal presence of its instigator.
Events begin with a dreamlike voyage up the Senegal River before Maltese is left to plot his own course, constantly being confounded in his objective of meeting up with Sissako. The Mauritanian filmmaker – best known to many for his award-winning 2014 film Timbuktu – was ostensibly supposed to act as a guide for Cruchten. Here he is more of a phantom, consisting primarily of whispered advice tailing off in the wind and phone messages apologising for having to leave locales just before Maltese has arrived. This is conveyed through on-screen texts, audio recordings, and Maltese’s own narration which provides the film with narrative and ruminative frameworks as he reflects on what and who he is encountering on his path.
Cruchten initially approached Maltese to collaborate on the film because he had seen the way he filmed the desert – such as in his previous film 50 Days in the Desert (2016) – and told him that he admired ‘the way you draw on the eyes of others.’ Both elements are given plenty of room to breathe in The Invitation, as Maltese’s camera searches for the face of Mauritania through landscapes and portraits as exquisitely composed as one another. For Maltese the desert seems to act as antagonistic inspiration, holding a mirror up to the observer in its uncompromising hostility. The introspection specific to the filmmaker is captured in voiceover but a similarly meditative opportunity is offered to the viewer through his images, which encompass both the brutality and beauty of the environment. Of note is the intensity of colour in the visuals – they are so vivid that at times they seem almost unreal. In one moment when the narration expresses relief for respite from the arid wilderness, it would be easy to disagree given the rich tonality proffered even by barren desert.
Although The Invitation becomes Maltese’s own unique journey, it remains haunted throughout by Pol Cruchten. ‘In this pale dawn ghosts are by my side,’ the voiceover states at one point and in another Maltese relays the look he sees in Cruchten’s eyes before remembering that they are not actually there. A recurring motif sees a rug laid out in the landscape which can be read either as an intended meeting place with Sissako which remains frustratingly empty, or one inhabited by an invisible companion. Despite The Invitation bearing minimal surface resemblance to Maltese’s previous film, Lost Flowers, these shots do echo an image from that film of an empty chair, unoccupied because of a family loss.
This sense is also taken up by the film’s visual language, which retains a floating, unearthly quality throughout. Maltese used a small Steadicam which allows the movement to be fluid and buoyant and these parts transition perfectly into vast aerial panoramas – sometimes soaring up from the ground as if Cruchten’s spirit decided it needed a higher perspective. The cohesiveness of the imagery allows the film to feel both intimate and expansive in the same moments and this, in turn, gives Maltese freedom to traverse boundaries – between the spiritual and the physical, between personal journey and geographical documentary, between the present and an imagined, alternative future. This doesn’t necessarily make The Invitation the easiest film to pin down, even while you’re in its midst, but it makes for beguiling viewing.
Director, cinematography: Fabrizio Maltese
Screenplay: Fabrizio Maltese, Stephan Roelants
Producer: Jeanne Geiben
Editor: Qutaiba Barhamji
Music: Emre Sevindik
Sound: Arnaud Mellet
Production companies: Red Lion, Joli Rideau Media (Luxembourg)
In Hassanya, French
78 minutes
