The Boy With White Skin

Bluesky

There is no introduction to Simon Panay’s Oscar-shortlisted short film. We’re plunged into the action just like its young hero, Issa (Boubacar Dembélé), who has no real understanding of what’s happening to him when his father takes him to the mine. We never find out if his services have been loaned or if he has been sold. We don’t know where he will sleep that night. We know that he doesn’t want to go down the hole. Who would? Barely a metre wide, it descends into unknown blackness, unknown depths. But as a child one never has very much power, let alone when surrounded by unsympathetic adult strangers, so down he goes.

Albino people are the locus of superstition in many parts of Africa. In Burkina Faso, it is widely believed that they attract gold, which is seen not as a humble mineral but as a beast which must be hunted. They may also have the power to deter evil spirits. In the broad, uneven tunnel that opens out at the base of the shaft, where sweaty men toil endlessly by lamplight, the boy, who still has no idea what’s going on, is instructed to sing. He doesn’t have much of a repertoire, just a childhood song which, as frightened by the miners as he is by the dark, he repeats over and over again. This is enough to satisfy the men. Once he’s performing as they hoped, they make it clear how much they treasure him.

The darkness, the slippery shadows, the sheen over everything give the place a magical quality. Together with the intense claustrophobia, it creates the feeling of being trapped in an otherworldly nightmare. The camera remains at the boy’s height, towered over by the miners. Little pockets of blackness near the edges of the screen hint at a larger underground space in which some unknown thing is moving, hunting and being hunted.

Inspired by real rituals which Panay was told about but, as an outsider, not allowed to witness directly, the film offers a vivid glimpse of a very particular way of life. This is an artisan mine, secured by bribes, not subject to safety checks. The miners pay to work there, dreaming of riches which, geology tells us, will never be theirs. Most will be dead before they reach 40. What will happen to the boy?

The film’s open ending leaves viewers wondering, disorientated upon returning to the world above. With no means of situating events in a larger context, it’s all the easier to be overwhelmed by the sensory experience, to get a taste of the frightening but intoxicating experience which draws men to their doom, and of the superstition that helps them cope. Panay is hoping that it can be used educationally to reduce superstition about albino people. It would be vey difficult to watch it and not empathise.

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