‘Lingui, the Sacred Bonds’ Review: Love, Ferocious and Limitless

Freedom doesn’t come easily in “Lingui, the Sacred Bonds,” an electric liberation story about a mother and daughter. It is fought for — and seized — by women who, in saving themselves, save one another. For the daughter, autonomy means securing an abortion in a country that forbids it. For the mother, an observant Muslim, self-sovereignty is a revolutionary act, one that necessitates a shift in thinking and in being. It means saying no, dancing, sneaking smokes and fighting when need be. It means finding new ways to be a woman in this man’s world.

The story unfolds in present-day N’Djamena, Chad, where Amina (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane) spends much of her time on just getting by. With her 15-year-old daughter, Maria (Rihane Khalil Alio), Amina lives in a humble home with a rickety gate, thick walls and a sweet, playful dog and charming kitten. For money, Amina makes small, ingeniously designed coal stoves using steel wires that she painstakingly salvages from old car and truck tires she buys. When she’s made enough, she covers her head and body, gingerly balances the stoves on her head and roams the city selling them for the equivalent of a few dollars.

The family’s domestic tranquillity has already been disrupted when the story opens, though you’re as in the dark about what’s gone wrong as Amina is. The writer-director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, however, is a fast worker — the movie runs just shy of 90 minutes — and he rapidly sketches in the story and the grim stakes for both mother and daughter. Maria has been expelled from school because she’s pregnant. (“It’s bad for our image,” a school official coolly explains.) Maria won’t name the father. And she does not want a child, partly because she doesn’t want to end up like Amina, who has suffered for being a single mother.

Much as in the American independent movie “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” the struggle to obtain a safe abortion here is difficult, life-changing and profound. Narratively, the effort to secure one rapidly takes the shape of an odyssey, a voyage filled with misadventures, harrowing threats and gendered hurdles. For Amina, these obstacles include government prohibitions on abortion, empty pockets, wagging fingers and shaking heads. There’s the hectoring imam (Saleh Sambo) who questions her faith; and there’s the pesky neighbor (Youssouf Djaoro) who’s happy to flirt with her but won’t lend her money.

Haroun has a gift for distilling volumes of meaning in his direct, lucid, balanced visuals, which he uses to complement and illuminate the minimalist, naturalistic dialogue. And while you worry about his characters and their fates, it’s instructive that he opens “Lingui” with a close-up of Amina, her face pouring sweat, intensely focused on something outside the frame. The light is soft and lovely, and the sounds of her progressively deeper breaths blend with the melodic music and murmurings heard in the background. A few more cuts and close-ups reveal that she is using a blade to slice open a large tire. It’s difficult, punishing work.

But Amina keeps at it, keeps wrestling with the tire, and then she stands and puts her entire body into this laborious endeavor, using every muscle to extract the wires. You know this woman within minutes of the movie opening, before you even hear her name. And while you see the modesty of her circumstances, what hits you, what gets under your skin and into your head, are the dust and the sweat, her grit and her unwavering focus. Amina gets the tough, exhausting job done. And then she puts on a flowing robe and sails into the city, presenting an image — a costume — of classic, demure femininity.

Haroun complicates that image beautifully in “Lingui.” The movie is about a great many different things, including the colors and textures of this world, its tenderness and cruelty. But while the story is organized around Amina’s heroic efforts to secure a safe abortion for Maria, each step in this difficult venture expands the movie’s narrative and political horizons. This is a story about a handful of specific women. It’s also about the bonds that connect them, even when frayed, and that help form a larger sisterhood that includes Amina’s long-estranged sister (Briya Gomdigue) and an obliging midwife (Hadjé Fatimé Ngoua).

That sisterhood is complex and at times fragile, but it is always rooted in the lived experiences and bodies of these women. Again and again, Haroun shows you Amina and Maria alone and together, at times exchanging hugs or tenderly bowing their heads toward each other. Every so often, you see each running along a street alone, her clothes fluttering and body straining with effort. He shows feet and braids, a flash of a bared leg, the teasing glimpse of a belly. He shows you women in motion and in revolt, fleeing and escaping and at times running sly, joyous circles around the men in their lives. And, if you watch the final credits, you will hear the sounds of women’s laughter, too — a divine and triumphant coda.

Lingui, The Sacred Bonds
Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters.