Watching this Ethiopian drama is rather like sitting through an assembly when you’re 15 years old. Your buttocks going numb on the hard gymnasium floor as the speaker holds forth about ‘potential’ and the various ‘crossroads’ that we, the year group, are going to encounter. That is because Running Against the Wind is an earnest little morality tale about two young boys and their transition to adulthood – hopes and dreams and all that stuff.
The two boys are Solomon (Mikias Wolde), a recalcitrant troublemaker, and Abdi (Ashenafi Nigusu), a shy and sensible type. Together they live in rural Ethiopia, a harsh place with very little to go around. The boys go separate ways when Solomon steals a camera and flees to Addis Ababa, where he dreams of becoming a photographer. The narrative then shifts through their adolescence and into early adulthood, where we find that Abdi has become a famous runner and Solomon a mere street hustler living in a shantytown with his girlfriend and son. When the two boys rekindle, a struggle for the straight and narrow begins.
Director Jan Philipp Weyl does good work with cinematographer Mateusz Smolka, presenting urban and rural scenes that burst with vivid colour. There’s a novel ambience to Addis Ababa, too – it is a city that’s rarely depicted in international cinema. However, just like your high school pep talks, it’s all a bit hackneyed and uninvolving.
The leads’ performances are competent, if a little blank. But that isn’t the problem here; the real issues are with the script. Firstly there’s the dialogue, which is stilted, expositional and in strict service to the narrative, idly pushing it along rather than developing the characters. Then there are the set pieces, which trample any remaining investment we may have had. The worse offense is an overegged fight sequence that’s followed by a defiant moment on the racetrack – it’s just pure cheese. This is a pity, because Running Against the Wind could have been a stark and authentic story rather just a glossy melodrama.
Running Against the Wind is available on streaming platforms now.