Le Franc

Diop-Mambéty's short final part of the trilogy he began way back when with the acclaimed Touki Bouki is a winning cautionary tale about a poor Senegalese congoma player who wins the lottery. Shot (in beautiful colour) in a lively composite style that brings to mind the experimental freshness of '20s Soviet cinema, it veers easily and joyfully between realist, surrealist and almost-documentary modes, with jangling camera angles and a foot-tapping soundtrack featuring music in French, English and Arabic (including a delightful Tom Waits-like, deep-toned vocalist). It's a satire, of course, on Senegal's economic and social contradictions (the S. Franc has recently devalued, the lottery's an irrelevant fantasy), delivered as the sweetest of pills.