A Screaming Man (2011)

To me, this movie is perfection.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Although this movie was fairly slow-paced, I did not mind it because it really made the movie that much more personal. I don't think that we realize how much time alone as humans we actually have, and how much silence we actually have in our lives, and this movie was basically a reflection of that. It seemed slow because we are used to seeing fast- paced American movies that are made to keep your attention. During this movie, I was not entertained the entire time, but that is okay, because we are not entertained in everyday life all the time. I felt bad for Adam because he was so sad, and I could tell he felt really bad for sending Abdel into the military. Although I do not agree with his choice to do that, I can understand why he did it, since he was in a bad state of mind, and also very poor. Sometimes people make choices in the moment for their own benefit, that they do not know will turn out badly, which is what I think Adam did, but he didn't mean to make things worse. I didn't like, however, when Abdel's girlfriend was crying on the bed and he covered her mouth, muting her screams. At first, I thought he was trying to kill her or hurt her in some way, which made me uncomfortable. I did like the scene when he put Abdel's body into the water, and it faded out. I thought that was a really pretty and peaceful way to end such a thoughtful movie.

A Screaming Man in my opinion was not a very great movie. I did not enjoy this much quite as much as the other ones because it was very slow. I understand that slow movies still have a meaning and a story behind them but it did not seem so as much in this film. It was not that clear to me how Abdel manages to take his dads job. How did it happen? What did he do? Because I know they called Adam into to office to ask if two worker were to many people for the pool and he said no it was a good amount of people. So I am assuming Abdel was like I think two people is one to many. The movies was full of selfish characters to me. Abdel took his dads job and his dad gets sent to work at the gate. Adam is not a fan of this and then gets him drafted into the civil war. This means that Adam gets his job back. He basically murdered his own son by sending him into the civil war. You can tell the movie is not an American movie y how slow it is. American movies move at a much faster rate. While I was watching the film I noticed globalization, the women from China was the head of a hotel in Chad. If I was to put myself in the shoes of one of the characters. I would have made it so Abdel as told the women from China that they needed two workers by the pool because that would have solved many conflicts throughout the film. If I could have changed the ending I would have made it so that the son does not die and that the family gets back together and Abdel's son is born.

"A Screaming Man" had some compelling scenes, but much of the movie was very slow to develop. I am aware that African movies have long silences during different times of their movies, but it seemed to be excessive at times. Some different, short scenes seemed very unnecessary with the lack of actual relevant talk about the true message and reason for the movie. For example, when they were eating dinner, the scene seemed to simply just drag on with long silences and uninteresting small talk. It was a little weird how "Champ" decided to send his son off to the war. Then, he wanted to go back and rescue his son later on in the movie. I, also, was not a huge fan of the ending. I found it weird that he found his son dead when driving home. After that, he laid with his son's dead body watching the water. Though it may have been symbolic, I was a little creeped out by the whole idea. There were also a lot of questions that went unanswered. The whole war got brushed under the rug when it appeared to be getting pretty serious. People were fleeing the country due to the big war, but nothing was mentioned about what happened.

The Screaming Man is a fascinating tale about the bond of a father and son. Everything is going well; the father loves his job working at the pool of a local hotel, and his son, Abdel, ends up joining him. The father, Adam/Champ, says that the pool is his life, and he seems to love everything about his job. Things begin to change as a Chinese company takes over the hotel, and Adam's friend, who works as the cook, gets fired. Adam is moved to the position of gate guard, and his son takes over the position of pool boy. After this, Adam is portrayed as very sad and brooding in many of the scenes. Unlike American films, there are a lot of silences. I am not accustomed to seeing this in movies or in general because in our culture, usually people talk a lot (sometimes too much). However, I think it is a good representation of life. We, as humans, are alone a lot and have a lot of chances to reflect and think about our choices and our beliefs. Abdel is drafted to fight in the civil war which we later find out is because Adam got him into in. I think he did this for selfish reasons but later regretted this decision. Parents are people, too, with needs and hopes and dreams and wants. Adam loved the pool so much that he was willing to sacrifice his son to get what he wanted, but then he realized the error of his ways.