The Exile (1980) poster
1980 · drama · folktale · tradition

The Exile

Directed by Oumarou Ganda1h 30m1980
ElsewhereIMDb7.324TMDB7.05
  • sombre
  • measured
Movie DNA

Sombre, measured, measured drama / folktale, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Based on a traditional African tale. A king has the habit whilst walking in disguise on the streets of his kingdom to listen to the wishes of his own people. One day he overhears two brothers daydreaming out loud about marrying the king's daughters, even if that meant being beheaded one year later. The weddings take place and one of the brother is decapitated one year later. The other one escapes execution at his wife's insistence. On a long journey full of surprising incidents, our hero himself becomes king of a village with wives and subjects. However, his earlier promise haunts him, and in order to save his family he accepts to be sacrificed.

Our read · The Exile (1980) reads as a sombre, measured, inventive drama · folktale · tradition entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The Exile

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want an African folk tale film about a king's disguised walk and fateful wishes.

ends bittersweetit stays with youa slow buildgrips by minute 30attention 3/5earns its lengthsubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violence

Skip it tonightSkip if you dislike deliberate pacing or need English-only dialogue.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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