Fragments of Life

The title tells all: three vignettes, apparently unconnected, save that they take place in a large city in equatorial Africa in the late '90s, and each is marked by hardship, injustice, exploitation and struggle. An unemployed man tries to resist temptation offered by criminal acquaintances; a young woman plots vengeance on a tormentor from the past; a barmaid/prostitute encounters an old flame who vanished years before. The storytelling is elliptical, discursive, intriguing, taking its time to make its points; but the performances and camerawork have an immediacy which renders this unsentimental portrait of modern Africa vivid and engrossing.