DIRECTED BY

Daniel Minlo and Cyrille Masso

STARRING

Bertrand Baleguel, Mbongue Epee, Jean Bediebe, Tatiana Matip, Andre Bang, Diallo Diallo, Daniel Leuthe, Timoleon Boyengenou, Alex Bitchoka, Joseph Mouetcho, Ali Mvondo, Jacobin Yarro, Axel Abessolo and Gérard Essomba

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SYNOPSIS

In the heart of Africa, a king is poisoned by one of his subjects. It’s suggested that two aids of the palace should go out and venture to the sacred cave, to look for an antidote to cure the king of Mabunos.

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The Sacred Cave is an animated feature from Cameroon that is directed by Daniel Minlo and Cyrille Masso. In the film the ‘Fon’, King of Mabunos, is poisoned, believed to be by one of his subjects. An old seer Ngan’ga, who was exiled from the city, is called to help the aide the King. As he travels to meet the King alongside his son Manou, he believes the remedy that they need to heal the King can be found at the sacred cave. Two aids are chosen to journey to the sacred cave, Manou, and Samba, the heir to the throne. While travelling to get the antidote, they encounter things they wouldn’t believe as the future of the kingdom rests on their shoulders.

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One of the things that I have the privilege of attending these film festivals is seeing films that I would pretty much have no chance of accessing. Enter The Sacred Cave, which is my first step through the door in the world of African animation and what immediately caught my attention was the art work that’s gone into the film. The colours are vibrant, the colour shading is really well done when the scenes focus on the scenery and the landscape from a long shot view. The story itself is interesting as well, as you try to figure out yourself just who within the King’s circle has made an attempt on his life by poisoning him and, the further we get into the film, there’s a lot of lore and backstory (e.g. Ngan’ga was exiled from the kingdom, but why?) that does keep your attention in the film, but it really excels in the final act of the film.

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Unfortunately, with its art work and grand ambitions of its storytelling, you can definitely feel that the studio (Malo Pictures) hit a brick wall in pushing their limited budget for the animation work. There are times when there’s some sudden jumps in the frame due to the editing (for example, one character is about to cough and you see that the frame has suddenly zoomed in slightly & has shifted slightly to the left), and there’s times when characters suddenly ‘teleport’ into the scene with how they’re spliced in. The likes of characters talking off screen to the person that is on screen didn’t bother me as much, but those previous examples I mentioned were unfortunate distractions.

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VERDICT

The Sacred Cave certainly has a lovely art style and an engaging story that it wants to tell, its unfortunately let down at times with its limited animation.

★★