In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another.... (Full plot summary below)
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In a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another.
Leave your thoughts about Atlantics.
| Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsThe mysteries of Atlantics, and there are plenty, are rooted in the question of what the lives of those men were worth—and of what, just as urgently, the life of a young woman like Ada might be worth, accordingly. But Diop’s approach to that question is elliptical, borne of a plot that mixes genres, religious superstitions, and the modernity of the cell phone age, into something wily and unpredictable. |
| Slant MagazineChristopher GrayAs Mati Diop mourns Senegal’s lost men, she honors their grief and affords them tremendous power all at once. |
| Boston GlobeTy BurrAtlantics is a stunner that sneaks up on you: A folk tale, a police procedural, a ghost story, a love story, a fable of empowerment — Mati Diop’s directorial debut never stops evolving in new directions and meanings. It’s a work of magical realism close to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other masters of the game, and the confidence with which it has been made is thrilling. |
| RogerEbert.comMonica CastilloIn watching so many films in a given week, month, or year, it’s rare to find one that sustains its thrills throughout its runtime, matches its gorgeous imagery with a compelling story, and defies easy categorization. Mati Diop’s haunting narrative feature debut Atlantics is one such movie. It’s unlike few other movies you’ll see this year or possibly this decade. |
| The TelegraphTim RobeyIt has a slippery elegance, an ambitious way of nudging its nose into magic realism, and some unforgettable images. |
| PolygonKaren HanDiop’s film isn’t brash or loud, but it’s still stunning, capturing the migrant story and its effects in a new light. |
| Original-CinLiam LaceyA magic realist fantasy, a ghost story, a love story and political allegory, Atlantics packs a deceptive amount of complexity in a gauzy, slender film. |
| Rolling StoneDavid FearAtlantics pulls you into an experience. The empathy machine runs at full speed here. Ada, c’est moi. |
| The New YorkerRichard BrodyDiop films the characters and the city with a tactile intimacy and a teeming energy that are heightened by the soundtrack’s polyphony of voices and music; she dramatizes the personal experience of public matters—religious tradition, women’s autonomy, migration, corruption—with documentary-based fervor, rhapsodic yearning, and bold affirmation. |
| The New York TimesA.O. ScottIt testifies to the variety and vitality of politically alert genre filmmaking. It’s a suspenseful, sensual, exciting movie, and therefore a deeply haunting one as well. |
