Thomas Wolfe famously popularized the idiom “you can’t go home again” in his novel of the same title, the meaning derived from it is that you can never truly go back to where you came from once you leave because that a place changes in your absence and is no longer the same. In Aya, Aya can’t go home again, even before she’s ever left, because her home is physically disappearing into the ocean. If Aya (played by newcomer Marie-Josée Degny Kokora) had a choice she would never leave home but the choice is being stolen from her.
Simon Coulibaly Gillard (director, writer, sound, cinematographer, co-editor) documentary roots come across right from the beginning in the way he included little snapshots of life that helped build the sense of the community of the island as well as how he chose to frame his actors, especially Marie-Josée who has to carry the bulk of the film on her performance as Aya. Aya is the POV and few sequences don’t include her. Marie-Josée is more than capable, she’s dynamic. She brought a vibrancy to the screen, whether she was flirting with a boy, washing her brother, or especially anytime she played opposite Patricia Egnabayou, who portrayed her mother. This is her debut film but you’d never guess.
Aya loves her home and her life on her island and right from the start she states her desire to stay on it, even as it’s falling into the ocean. While the elders reminisce about what the island once was, and wonder what they did to upset the ocean, we are left seeing the island as people are already starting to leave and as they dig up their dead because their graveyard which was once far from the shore is now getting swept away by the waves.
You get a sense of the grandeur of this island’s past in the massiveness of the Church, the elaborate nature of the tombs, and a flashback of the original funeral procession of Aya’s father. The contrast to the destruction of the graves and the slipshod reburial of Aya’s father shows how long the hard times have been for the people on the island.
However, Aya is still a teenage girl and while her island is falling into the ocean, she’s also falling in love for the first time. The boy’s name is Junior. He woos her by teaching her how to swim, climbing trees to get her coconuts, and showing off his fishing prowess. Though, I’m not convinced she needed to learn how to swim. She has a very assured whip kick for a beginner. There was a clever choice to have him be out of focus when she realizes their relationship can’t last, much like the home she loves. He was fading away in the same her island was, right before her, and our, very own eyes.
Water is a constant in the film, the sound waves crashing into the shore become almost soothing in their familiarity. It is often violent, but there are moments, like when Aya’s learning to swim, when the water provides joy. And the way water is filmed is beautiful. There’s a particular underwater scene of Aya’s legs running that is downright stunning.
The whole film was gorgeously shot with a colour balance atypical to what most filmmakers, especially white filmmakers, ascribe when filming this region. More filmmakers should take note because Simon Coulibaly Gillard captured the world and characters of Aya with such life that is lost when there is an extreme colour filter is used.
Aya had an innocence and zest for life. When she moved to the mainland, they had her consume alcohol and got out partying, engaging in behaviour she never had while on the island. In many movies, when a young woman strays from her usual path to seek enjoyment in acts deemed less “pure,” they are punished. I got super worried when she was walking alone late at night that something bad was going to happen. But thankfully, this movie didn’t choose to inflict physical violence on top of the emotional hardship Aya already faced at losing her home.
In the end, she went back to the water so she could cling to memory; the only way Aya could in any small way return to the home she once knew. The home that no longer exists.
Aya premiered at Cannes parallel section ACID.