Felice makes his live singing in a bar in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). She is a brave, tough woman, who is trying hard not to explain anything to anyone.
The result is a musical and visual feast that is not world-denying, but rather world-affirming in its careful exposition of the quiet pleasures of day-to-day life, and the godly beauty to be found in the resolve of everyday people and relationships.
Beya ... arrives fully formed here as a figure of enormous dignity and warmth, a pillar of resilience who is nonetheless all-too-humanly susceptible to exhaustion, grief and despair.
Mr. Gomis's cinematic style is spectacularly multifaceted. The camerawork and cutting often have the fleetness of a documentary, but there's nothing sloppy about them.
Gomis's handheld cameras work to keep up with the actors, who seem to move with rare freedom, but he also stages some exquisite and complex flourishes ...