They were very real. And I always have to explain that we didn’t kill them. They were already dead and we saved a lot of money because of that.
That leads me to the magical realism component, which almost borders on horror in nature—especially with the single-note piano score.
I worked with Bachar Khalifé on the music. I didn’t want to work with an African composer because I didn’t want my music to be too obvious. I didn’t want tam-tam drums; I didn’t want koras; I didn’t want a prototypical African sound. I wanted a universal sound because I wanted my story to be universal at the end. But it was interesting to work with Bashar because he’s from Lebanon. Lebanon is between the West and Africa, so he knows the sound of Africa and the sound of the West. When Bachar read the script for the first time, he told me, I hear a lot of electronic guitar for Banel. It was so interesting for me because I had never heard an electric guitar in an African movie with a little bit of rock piano. We really tried to stick the music to what Banel was feeling at the beginning. The music is not beautiful and peaceful; as Banel grows crazier because of Adama, the music does too.
The music bleeds in so well with the soundtrack of the children whispering Banel and Adama’s names. What was the thinking behind that component of the soundscape?
This is a good question. I don’t even think I know the answer myself. For me, in the script, they were in jail, jailed away from another world. Banel, for me, isn’t human. She’s someone who, unfortunately, fell into the wrong world for her. She has some magic and power and mysticism in her, and I think the voice shows how she comes from another world. And it’s, of course, the guilt she feels for killing her first husband.
I love that you say she comes from a different world because there is this otherworldliness about Banel, and Khady Mane, the actress who plays her. You’ve previously mentioned that you struggled to cast Banel, to the point that you resorted to scouring the streets to find a person who could play her. You ended up randomly locking eyes with Mane from across the street and knew she was the one. What did you see in her eyes that made you so sure?
She had big eyes, you know? In real life, Khady, who plays Banel, isn’t like her at all. She’s quite different. She’s shy. She’s afraid of everything. Every night, she sleeps with the light on because she’s afraid of everything, and she’s 24. So she’s really different from Banel. But I don’t know. When I saw her, I think I saw a little bit of craziness in her, a kind of craziness that she didn’t even know about. That’s funny because at the end of the shooting, Khady said to me, I didn’t know I had this in me, this power, this craziness, this will to be a woman in this world. I am happy I revealed that in my actress, not in my character, but in my actress.