‘Yeelen’ (NR)

The pleasures of "Yeelen," the latest film from the Malian director Souleymane Cissé, spring almost entirely from the magical unfamiliarity of its setting and its people. Its drama is in its landscape, its romance in the faces of its actors.

Cissé is perhaps the best-known figure in African cinema, and there has been a great deal of critical clamor over his latest film. Ever since its initial screening in 1987 at Cannes (where it won the jury prize), reviewers have been climbing over one another to proclaim it a masterpiece, calling it "the most beautiful film ever to have emerged out of Africa," and the like. Certainly "Yeelen" is beautiful; its landscapes and its characters have been magnificently photographed. And certainly Cissé exposes us to a story and a culture that are unlike any that we are likely to see anywhere else.

Still, though it's handsome and intriguing, "Yeelen" is far short of being a masterpiece. Cissé immerses us in the mythology of the Bambara tribesmen of Mali, specifically in the initiation rituals of a young man (Issiaka Kane) caught in a life-and-death struggle with his shaman father (Ismail Sarr). But while the director has a gift for provocative imagery, he has no discernible narrative skills. He's unable to make both the basic Oedipal conflicts and the broader mythological implications intelligible. Nor is he able to situate us comfortably in time and space -- we float, not certain where we are or where we're going.

The sensation is not entirely unpleasant. The picture has its own enthralling, leisurely rhythms; there's nothing mechanized about the pace of the storytelling. But there's nothing terribly magnetic either. Cissé presents his story in a manner that is lulling and, ultimately, boring. This can't be attributed wholly to need for gratification instilled in us by television and commercial filmmaking. Plain and simple, there's just not enough going on -- or not enough that's accessible to us.