You know that thing where you write your crush’s name next to yours over and over on a piece of paper? It’s a universal expression of lovesickness – a charming custom carried-out from Saskatoon to Shanghai; from San Francisco to Sahel.

One never expects that intense sunshine will bleach the page, and that the sweat from our brow will blur away the ink.

BANEL & ADAMA is a tale of its two titular characters in a small Senegalese village. They have a deep affection for each-other and want to leave behind the customs and trappings of their village for a life of their own in abandoned houses nearby. As it happens, they spend many a day digging out the homes from a sandstorm that buried them some time ago.

However, a love match isn’t the sort of thing that is promoted or even fully accepted in this village, so Banel & Adama face a lot of obstacles from the community and its elders. They would rather Banel take his place as chief of the village (a burden he’d rather not bear), and Adama bear him a child or two to keep up the line of descendants (ditto).

This obstacle would be a challenge at the best of times – but as a drought begins to pummel the village, we learn quickly that these are not the best of times.

Our star-cross’d lovers will have to make a choice sooner or later; after all, one cannot dig houses and graves at the same time.

To witness the tragedy of Banel & Adama is to witness the colour in one’s life slowly slip away. This effect is equal parts practical and psychological. Practically, we witness an unrelenting drought punish the patch of Sahel that our characters call home until the land, its creatures, and everyone nearby is stripped of the vibrancy that indicates life. Physchologicaly, we walk the path next to Adama as the intensity of her needs and decisions burns brighter and brighter. She has made many choices in life that aren’t extraordinary, yet because they break from the norms of society in her village she grows more and more threadbare as she continues to have to answer for them.

The film is a fable descended from the lines of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. It begs us not to assign blame to human hardship, and with the next breath dares us not to. With scene after scene, it puts us in the centre of the circle and forces us to keep our head up while the whole community stares back with accusing looks. They accuse us of having the gall to want our own life, our own family, our own home – how dare we. Should we feel the urge to square our shoulders and fend off the blame the film meets us with blood or blight to prove its point.

How dare we.

To see what director Ramata-Toulaye Sy gets from her non-actors in her first feature-length film is to witness mastery of storytelling. She is able to find the light in the darkness, and offer relief from a tenacious sun. She scores her film to the beating of farm tools and the hum of prayers being offered – surrounding us with its very singular sensory setting.

The result is something between a poem, a prayer, a plea and a nightmare … and unforgettable in every way