Our Problems (2004)
★½ — Our Problems (2004)
Cheick Fantamady Camara made this short before going on to direct his debut feature Bil'in Habibti (2006) and the Cannes-selected Il va pleuvoir sur Conakry (2007), films that established him as one of Guinea's most significant voices in contemporary African cinema. Our Problems is a co-production between French outfit Les Films de Cléopâtre and Guinean company Djoliba Productions, a pairing typical of the French-African co-production model that has long been one of the only viable routes to funding for filmmakers from Francophone West Africa. Shot on location in Guinea Conakry, the film draws on the very real crisis of internal displacement in the region, where conflict and poverty have produced large, semi-permanent refugee populations with limited access to social services or legal protection.
A-Z World Movie Tour Guinea I wanted to like Our Problems. Truly. The premise (a glimpse into Guinean refugee camps through the lens of a struggling family) feels urgent, necessary, even. But somewhere between noble intent and execution, this film stumbles into a mess of tonal whiplash, undercooked subplots, and a narrative that feels less like a story and more like a checklist of social issues. The film’s attempts at allegory (each character embodying a systemic problem) come across as clunky rather than insightful. Instead of weaving themes together organically, it feels like the scriptwriter scribbled some hollyoaks plot points on sticky notes and slapped them onto scenes. The intercutting between storylines isn’t seamless, it’s jarring, like flipping channels between documentaries mid-sentence. And while the performances are earnest, the characters themselves are thinly sketched, their motivations muddled. Even the humor (meant to highlight generational clashes) lands with all the subtlety of a sitcom laugh track. A scene where a grandmother quizzes her grandson about her teeth should be charming, but it’s undercut by the film’s relentless bleakness. One minute you’re chuckling at familial banter, the next you’re watching a teen coerced into crime. The whiplash is exhausting. Technically, it’s rough around the edges (sound quality fluctuates, pacing drags in stretches), but the real issue is ambition overreach. It wants to be a sweeping portrait of resilience and systemic failure, but ends up feeling like a well-meaning lecture with shaky camerawork.
Rating: ★½ | Year: 2004 | Watched: 2025-06-26
Related on Movies With Macca
More from France: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Letter from Siberia (1957) · Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Here and Elsewhere (1976)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
