In Arabic, Abouna means "our father", both in the literal sense of family relations and also in a religious sense.
It's an interesting play on words, since in Mahamet Saleh Haroun's tale of family woes, 15-year-old Tahir (Moussa) and his younger brother Amine (Aguid) appear to have been abandoned by everyone, from their dad to God Himself.
Waking up one morning to discover that their father (Lamko) has disappeared, the brothers search the city of N'Djamena for him, ending up at the border bridge to Cameroon.
Unable to go any further, they head home via the local cinema, where they see their father up on the screen in the middle of a movie.
He turns to the camera and greets them. Is it real, or are they imagining it?
We never find out either way. This is a world of unnecessary - and often unexplained - suffering.
Abandoned by everyone from their parents to the state to the schools to the church, Tahir and Amine are left waiting, hopelessly, for their father to return.
Slowly building towards the boys' tragedy, the film's story unfolds at a lyrical pace, often paying more attention to the beauty of Abraham Haile Biru's understated cinematography than its characters.
Playing in the shadows of the sun-drenched desert locations, Biru creates a series of gorgeous compositions that capture the dark underside to this coming-of-age tale.
Guiding the story with a gentle - but hesitant - hand, director Haroun's debut feature desperately cries out for a firmer touch.
With a stronger sense of purpose behind the camera, the potential symbolism of the boys' plight (a mirror-image of wartorn Chad's sense of abandonment?) might have seemed less accidental.
As it stands, though, this is moving, yet unmemorable, cinema.
In French with English subtitles.
Abouna (Our Father) (2002)
