Rating: 3.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 51/52 | 2020s
Khat is a plan that is chewed as a recreational stimulant, not too dissimilar from strong coffee. Chewing khat, as a social custom, dates back thousands of years. These customs include religious rituals in Ethiopia, one of the largest producers and exporters of the plant—rituals that we have recorded back to the 14th century. History suggests that the plant originated in the Emirate of Harar.
This documentary goes to Harar to observe the use of khat and how it affects everyone in the area, from those who harvest it to the new generation of Oromo looking for a way out of the hyper-political region.
The filmmaking is less focused on fact-gathering and more on the phenomenological experience of being in this place and experiencing this drug. The monochrome cinematography adds a layer of distance and heightened beauty, mimicking traditional documentary but eschewing its narrative conventions.
Director Jessica Beshir is part-Ethiopian and grew up in Harar following the Ethiopian Civil War. The filmmaking gracefully avoids the “othering” chronic in conventional documentary filmmaking, especially about an African city. There are three films on Letterboxd in which Oromo is the primary language. Beshir directed two of them.
By design, this sort of film works best in a theater or somewhere with as few distractions as possible. The pacing is similar to Weerasethakul or Cuaron a la Roma. The style works against itself in the most poignant moments, where stories are relayed, and the cinematography distances us from the reality of this experience.
Still, this film tells an important, under-told story that deserves an audience.