The inmates who populate Night of the Kings apparently really love stories. The film is set in a prison known as La MACA (Maison d’Arrêt et de Correction d’Abidjan) in the economic capital of West Africa’s Ivory Coast, and these male convicts take storytelling very seriously — they practically serve as repertory players as a narrator spins a yarn. When a young pickpocket (Bakary Koné) shows up, he’s given the nickname Roman and finds himself having to give these guys a good story for one night.
Atop the prison’s food chain is Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu), La MACA’s resident lord — Dangoro, as he’s called — who has gotten too old and ill to carry on. He’s the one who chooses the new inmate to be the official storyteller before going off to the upper room — this is all part of a tradition that supposedly ends with the storyteller being offed once his story is finished.
Like so many movies about the incarcerated, Kings is about survival. Our boy Roman has to keep on regaling these convicts (among them is frequent Leos Carax collaborator Denis Lavant as a weirdo with a chicken on his shoulder) until the blood-colored moon over the prison is out of sight and he has made it to another day. He tells them the mostly fabricated history of Zama King, the revered (and recently murdered) outlaw whose gang Roman was a part of. Roman weaves an epic tale about Zama, which at one point involves two warring members of a royal family duking it out by shape-shifting into various objects. While Roman keeps the crowd riveted, rival crew leaders are plotting, scheming and, yes, killing in order to get to Blackbeard’s top spot. Even the guards have holed themselves up in a room until all this shit is over.
For his second feature, French-Ivorian writer-director Philippe Lacôte (Run) gives a rather embellished view of life at La MACA. (In interviews, he has said inmates do enjoy a good story, but they’re not about to kill the guy who tells it.) From the way Lacôte presents it — complete with dim/grim cinematography by Tobie Marier-Robitaille — the harsh, grungy surroundings of La MACA aren’t all that different from the harsh, grungy surroundings everywhere else in Abidjan. (La MACA is basically a slum that just happens to be populated by criminals.) Whether inside or out, they are all trapped and ready to go to war at a moment’s notice. Is it any wonder these guys like escaping with a tall tale?
I must admit, Kings is a movie I admire more than fully embrace. Lacôte is a filmmaker who has gone through great pains (seriously, the dude was attacked by a machete-wielding youth gang a couple winters ago) to show how treacherous and, ultimately, fantastical life in the Ivory Coast can get. Sometimes, both the figurative and literal madness of Night of the Kings can get overwhelming — especially in the chaotic finale.
Nevertheless, Night of the Kings has an impressive amount to work with in its 93-minute run time. Much like this movie’s imaginative protagonist, you may find yourself hanging in there, taking it all in, trying not to get wiped out and hoping you’ll live to see another day.
