Γιάαμπα

Matty4.0

Yaaba is a touching, compact film set and filmed in writer and director Idrissa Ouédraogo’s home nation in West Africa, Burkina Faso. Whereas the last African film I logged (Touki Bouki) was avant-garde, Yaaba is much more straight-forward in its narrative structure and style.It’s a great film centered around a heartwarming friendship between the young Bila, and the old Sana, who is not his grandma but he calls her Yaaba anyway. Yaaba is an outcast of the village and is called a witch by all but Bila and his cousin Nopoko. Ouédraogo seems to invite viewers to make judgments and comparisons about the generations of parent and child. Trusting vs suspicious. Kind vs cruel. Loyal vs unfaithful. It appears that most of the actors have not been credited in any or very few other films. The cast of nonprofessionals feels very natural and not at all distractingly bad. The composition of shots and the arid landscapes are lovely. Highly recommend. Up next: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Jed H3.5

A sweet, serene slice of life, and a rightful poster-child for Africa's 'return to the source' film canon.

♡ olivia ♡4.0

a great hidden gem that i'm happy to have found, yaaba is a story about the war between stubbornness versus wisdom, truth versus rumor, loyalty versus infidelity, and sickness versus health. the child acting from characters bila and nopoko carry the film, and it's a lovely slice of life with a good message at its core. the takeaway: you should get to know someone for yourself, instead of believing gossip told about them, and you should never judge someone solely based on the words of others, like how this village did with an elderly member sana (aka titular character yaaba - a respectful term meaning grandmother). a person's merit should not be built off of falsehoods. i really found a lot of meaning in this burkinabé tale. it's special.(top favorite first watches of 2023)