We’re used to seeing African films treating serious subjects in a tone as heavy as their subject matter. The result is not always up to the ambitions of their directors or the hopes of the audience. Watching BARBECUE – PEJO, we’re able to engage in a film that relates the thousand and one problems of African countries, but this time it’s all served up in a spicy comic sauce. Comic yes, but the interjection of dramatic sequences which give the film an originality that overwhelm the viewer. This mixture of comedy and drama so well mastered by Jean ODOUTAN is noteworthy for a young film maker who dares affront a subject with a head-first leap where the most experienced directors are so often unable to succeed.

BARBECUE – PEJO leads us, under a hot African sun, through what seems an apparently banal story, but which is in reality the symptom of a form of politics every day driving Africa that much deeper into the anguish of poverty and humiliation. Jean ODOUTAN introduces us to the actors involved in devouring his country. The foreigner (the white), who comes to sell his shoddy wares (a burnt-out old banger) with the aid of an Afro-Caribbean to the African,seduced by the delusion of all that’s technical. In the midst of this trio is the African woman, who, despite her courage and lucidity, is enable to pull her husband out from the unholy conspiracy he’s fallen into.

The adventures of this pigheaded trio unroll on a landscape of morals and customs that stand the hair on end for anyone who thinks that traditions are usually in place to maintain the status quo at the great expense of the "little people".

And finally, another strong point of the film is the language employed which demonstrates a certain rapport with a society’s identity. It’s not the language of the autochtones any more than it is modern day French. No, Jean ODOUTAN entertains us by placing the finely chiseled language of Racine’s time in the mouth of his characters. A (perhaps ironic?) director’s wink of the eye, reminding us that during the colonial period Benin was viewed as a sort of cultural heir of the Latin Quarter.

Ali AKIKA (film maker member of ACID)