Le Camp

“Repatriation impossible, integration utopian, resettlement imperative”: no sooner stamped onto a T-shirt, the slogan is lost in the place now abandoned by the UNHCR. The sense of respectability that leads the inhabitants of the Agamé refugee camp in Benin to call it “the site” could be considered inappropriate. Yet, true – none of the archetypal trappings of a camp are visible here, except for a tent full of old belongings being sorted by a man who sets aside what may still be of use. Sometimes the camera’s rhythm seems to reflect the filmmaker’s hesitation to frame a palm tree or a well-swept alley, as if the search for traces of bloodshed was what mattered most. The originality of the film hinges on this chasm between a violent past (which surfaces in their accounts) and a future built with bare hands. Following a man building a wall, a woman fetching water or a peasant sowing and watering with fervent patience, Le Camp shows how resilience depends on being able to structure and control one’s surroundings: here, repeated gestures do not degenerate into machine-induced alienation, they are what builds up permanence and transforms a refuge into a home.