Allah Is Not Obliged

Our protagonist, Birahima, is a twelve-year-old boy from Guinea. But I’m not sure a twelve-year-old visitor to Kaboom is old enough for this film. Birahima himself isn’t even old enough. No child should experience what he is going through. Birahima is a child soldier.

He starts out a little rascal in Guinea, fatherless, but his mother’s and grandmother’s favourite. They’re not rich, but they have each other. But when his mom dies, his grandma has no choice but to send the orphaned boy to live with his aunt in Liberia, accompanied by the cocky hustler Yacouba. However, Liberia is being torn apart by warlords and the two are quickly arrested. In no time, Birahima is presented with his own AK47.

Allah Is Not Obliged is based on a critically acclaimed Ivorian novel by Ahmadou Kourouma, as well as on research trips director Najjar (art director of La Sirène, 2023) made to the region, where he sketched the story’s locations and interviewed former soldiers. The process was also informed by his family’s Armenian roots in Lebanon and Syria, and by his producer Sébastien Onomo’s Cameroon origins, as both had been used to discussing civil war at home.

With its skilful depiction of West African forests, roads and villages, effective soundtrack and many tragically cruel events, Allah Is Not Obliged grabs you by the throat. But its masterstroke turns out to be the casting of Ivorian teen rapper SK07 as Birahima, whose voice-over guides us through the story. Although his defiant voice is full of cynicism, hate and despair, underneath, we can always sense the little boy who just wants to be held.