Harragas and La pirogue: the crucible of clandestine crossings

ABSTRACT

Although not a new phenomenon, ‘illegal migration’ has exploded in recent years, with daily news of hundreds of Africans, especially youths, risking their lives to cross the Atlantic in order to reach Europe in makeshift boats (pirogues). The dramatic rise in lives lost and families broken have prompted writers and filmmakers alike to grapple with this humanitarian crisis. Merzak Allouache’s film Harragas (2009, Algeria-France) exposes viewers with immediacy to the chilling reality of clandestine sea crossings, while also suggesting the problems that prompt them. Harragas refers to those who burn, e.g. their immigration papers, their identities and, at times, their lives by taking these boats, which often become a crucible of suffering. In this article, we will place Harragas in the context of related contemporary African literary and cinematic expression which explains the lure of a better life in Europe. Most notably, Moussa Touré’s film La pirogue (2012, Senegal) followed in the direction of Harragas, in the sense that it also centres on the actual lived experience within the boat during the ill-fated crossing. Social issues, such as the much discussed presence of a woman, a man suffering mental problems, language barriers and cultural misunderstandings between passengers from different countries will be treated within this context. We also provide a conceptual and comparative approach to the visual and narrative filmic conventions, as well as the forms and styles that characterise these films and others, which provide a new path within the larger discourse on migration today.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• clandestine
• pirogue
• Harraga(s)
• Algeria
• Senegal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Similarities in plot, the ‘precarious’ situation of the characters, the one woman on board, and the ‘final failure’ have been noted briefly by Dima (2013, 148) and Gilli (n.d.).

2 Titles of other films mentioned by critics on related themes, to name a limited number, include Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944), Jacques Champreux’s Bako, L’autre rive (1979), Gregor Nava’s El Norte (1983), Sembene Ousmane’s Camp de Thiaroye (1988), Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki (1991), Sembene Ousmane’s Toubab Bi (1991), Gianni Amelio’s Lamerica (1994), Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s La Promesse (1996), Mohamed Ismaël’s Et après (2002), Laïla Kilani’s Tanger (2002), Peter Weir’s Master and Commander (2003), Michael Winterbottom’s In This World (2003), Joshua Marston’s Maria Full of Grace (2004), Moussa Touré’s Nosaltres (2006), Slim Ben Chiekh’s Aéroport Hammam-Lif (2007), El Hadji Samba Sarr’s Graines que la mer emporte du feu (2007), Joséphine Ndagnou’s Paris à tout Prix (2007), Emmanuel Finkiel’s Nulle part (2008), Idrissa Guiro’s Barcelone ou la mort (2008), Tariq Teguia’s Inland (2008), Cary Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre (2009), Philipe Lioret’s Welcome (2009), Emanuele Criales’s Terraferma (2011), Aki Kausmaki’s Le Havre (2011), Antonio Méndez Esparza’s Aquí y allá (2012), Tony Gatlif’s Indignados (2012), and Ang Lee’s Life of Pi (2012). Also mentioned in this context are series and films made for television, such as Harraga, directed by Serge Alain Noa (2014). While related literature is too vast a subject to treat adequately here, Fatou Diome’s novel Le ventre de l’Atlantique (2003) merits mentioning, especially because of its title, related to those who are buried in the Belly of the Atlantic (2008).

3 Merzak Allouache, born in 1944 in Algiers, was raised during the Algerian struggle for independance. He studied at the National Institute of Cinema, and in the sixties, continued with directing studies at the IDHEC, the cinematic university in Paris, followed by further cinematic study in theory in Paris (‘Merzak Allouache’ trigon-film 2015). He has directed feature films, documentaries and films made for television. His first feature film, Omar Gatlato (1976), set in the neighbourhood of Bab El-Oued in Algiers, was so popular that it has been said to have ‘changed the course of Algerian cinema’ (Harvard Film Archive 2015). He has become known for describing in social comedies such as Salut, cousin! (1996) and Chouchou (2003) the relationship between France and Algeria, as well as Algerians among themselves in films about the years after the civil war (Bab El-Oued, 2005; Le Repenti, 2012, etc.).

4 Moussa Touré, born in Dakar in 1958, began his career early as a technician (electrician), and worked with François Truffaut for scenes of L’Histoire d’Adèle H. (1957), shot on Goree Island (on the bay of Dakar), as well as on the films Coup de Torchon (1981) by Bertrand Tavernier and Ousmane Sembène’s Camp de Thiaroye (1988). Since becoming a director, he has alternated between documentaries and fiction films and between shorts and full length movies. Touré’s first feature, Toubab Bi (1991) focuses on African immigrants in Paris and is somewhat autobiographical. While he has been seen as following in the tradition of Sembène Ousmane (1993–2007) in criticising Africans as well as Europeans and their policies, Touré acknowledges the American director John Ford, particularly the 1939 road movie/western Stagecoach, as inspiration for his 1997 film TGV, an ironic name for a taxi brousse, a fast bus transporting passengers from Senegal to Guinea (Caillé 2015; Desjardins 2013; Garane 2014; Gendron 2013).