Faya Dayi review – the ups and downs of khat’s zonked-out bliss
First-time feature director Jessica Beshir weaves a voile of torpor and reverie in this dramatised, poeticised documentary in gauzy monochrome about the cultivation of the khat plant in Ethiopia. Chewing its leaves induces an addictively woozy high, and it has long been treasured by certain followers of Sufism as an aid to religious contemplation.
The title is an incantatory chant uttered by the farmers of khat at their work – meaning “birth of wellbeing” – but in fact the film contrasts the zonked-out near-bliss of the khat consumers with the very hard work involved in actually producing it, along with the reality of what addiction means, with families torn apart. Khat is a part of their poverty, their discontent, their sense of imprisonment, and their (temporary) escape. Some young people employed in khat production are shown here listlessly dreaming of making it as refugees to Europe or to Saudi Arabia, where members of their fractured family have gone. There are ruminative monologue-voiceovers, memories and thoughts that Beshir has perhaps elicited through interview and research and reconstituted in scripted form.
The religious aspects of khat are not much touched upon: in fact this spiritual dimension has effectively migrated to the lustrous cinematography itself. But the film does talk about a political element: the farmers’ protest in 2015 against poor living standards and government arrogance, and specifically against a plan to expand the boundaries of the capital Addis Ababa which meant clearing farmland and crushing the farmers’ livelihoods and crops – including, of course, khat – a protest that ended in brutal suppression.
When the wisps of khat smoke clear away, it is perhaps not easy to decide exactly what is left behind, or to decide if khat is a cultural practice to be celebrated or rejected: but there are some marvellous images and moods in this misty, impressionistic study.
• Faya Dayi is released on 24 June in cinemas and on 29 July on Mubi.