NYFF 58 Review: The Power of Storytelling Takes Center Stage in Philippe Lacôte’s ‘Night of the Kings’
“When your world is built of golden walls, you don’t chase after dreams”
It is not the warden nor the correctional officers who run La MACA prison. It is one of the inmates, given the occupational name of the Dangoro, who oversees the masses from the inside. The current occupant, Blackbeard, is nearing death and by extension the end of his term. He clutches an oxygen mask and shuffles feebly around the open-style correctional facility amongst his followers. When scuffles break out and snowball, a single call from Blackbeard can stop the masses and cease the violence. Another call can start it back up again. At least, normally this is the way La MACA operates. In Night of Kings, we are inserted when Blackbeard’s sway is waning and inmates start laying track to usurp him.
At the same time, a new, youthful inmate is processed into the facility— the masses smell vulnerability and weakness, seemingly ready to exploit the new face. But in the newcomer, dubbed Roman, Blackbeard sees an opportunity. Under a red moon, Blackbeard calls for Roman to engage in an ambiguous prison ritual that requires a storyteller to regale the prison with a tale for the entirety of the night. Unbeknownst to Roman, there are whispers that the ritual usually concludes with the death of the storyteller. Nonplussed, he steps onto a box completely encircled by the inmates, and begins telling the story of his choosing.
Philippe Lacôte’s setup for Night of Kings is to the point. Within minutes of the film’s runtime we begin Roman’s tortuous tale of a criminal named The Zama King, complete with flourishes of cinematic reenactments. These diversions take us far and wide in modern sagas and ancient lore. As Roman becomes more savvy to his dire predicament, he elaborates more twists and turns that elongate his time at the center of attention. Lacôte’s instills all the elements of magical realism into Roman’s story using the reenactments as glimpses into Roman’s imagination. Stories of great battles, hidden lineages, and predetermined fates are painted in striking, and sometimes overblown, CGI. The borders between authenticity and fiction move from beneath the audience in ways that largely excite and enthrall. The audience is unsure where the fabric of reality starts and ends, but like us, they are also mostly unconcerned as Lacôte puts the spectacle of storytelling front and center.
Where Night of Kings stands out is in the grounded reenactments of the Zama King tale. Inmates interrupt Roman’s story with diversions of their own spurred by the spectacles generated in their imaginations. They coalesce into group dances mimicking fabled creatures and impromptu repetition of turn-of-phrases. Roman’s story bursts from his lips and into the very beings of the inmates, unable to contain the power the words hold. It’s a captivating look at the art of storytelling more akin to sitting around a campfire as legends are told than watching a narrative unfold on the silver screen.
Night of King’s effectiveness is laid bare in the power of storytelling. It doesn’t matter if Roman’s story of the mystical Zama King is true or not. The story he’s telling is one that stimulates the senses of the inmates and allows them a mental freedom they might not otherwise have. When Roman’s tale inevitably concludes, the walls of La MACA return and the battle for the Dangoro reemerges. But for the time being, we understand that sometimes the stories that unite us in whatever manner hold the greatest power: the power to ease life’s unpleasantries and transport us somewhere else.
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