Faya Dayi

Ethiopi­an leg­end tells of Azurkher­lai­ni, an old Amir who, in order to con­quer his fear, jour­neyed in search of Maoul Hay­at – the water of eter­nal life. It’s this tale that pow­ers Jes­si­ca Beshir’s Faya Dayi, a dream­like docu-dra­ma where ancient myth melds with harsh real­i­ty, mak­ing for a haunt­ing­ly
beau­ti­ful portrait.

The Ethiopia of old has changed. Cof­fee crops have now been replaced with khat, a stim­u­lant leaf that acts as a psy­choac­tive drug. Ini­tial­ly dis­cov­ered and used by the Sufi Imams as a means of ele­vat­ing reli­gious medi­a­tion, khat now forms Ethiopia’s most lucra­tive cash crop. Peo­ple of all ages chew the plant in order
to reach Merkhana – a high that gifts a reprieve from the tri­als of every­day life. Through the khat trade, Beshir explores the East­ern town of Harar and deft­ly weaves a series of nar­ra­tives that illus­trate an envi­ron­ment where dreams of escape – both men­tal and phys­i­cal – dom­i­nate the desires of many.

With the con­tin­ued demand, farm­ing khat has become a life­line for many in the region to sup­port them­selves and their fam­i­lies, yet the temp­ta­tions of suc­cumb­ing to its hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry qual­i­ties loom large. Mean­while, long-stand­ing polit­i­cal con­flicts between the Oro­mo peo­ple and the gov­ern­ment have led to their dis­en­fran­chise­ment, leav­ing many with lit­tle means of social mobility. 

Faya Dayi unfolds entire­ly in black-and-white, as Beshir offers up imagery that is tru­ly mes­meris­ing. Enig­mat­ic shots of shad­owy door­ways and smoke lazi­ly bil­low­ing out of a win­dow endorse the myth­ic aspects of the sto­ry, while lin­ger­ing shots of men sort­ing khat leaves before chew­ing aim­less­ly on the remains serve the social com­men­tary. The film fol­lows two sep­a­rat­ed lovers, a man yearn­ing for a bet­ter life for Ethiopia’s chil­dren, a boy who made it to Egypt only to return home for his moth­er, and a boy whose moth­er left him behind.

As if expe­ri­enc­ing the nox­ious side-effects of a khat high, events in the film are hard to fol­low. Save for 14-year-old Mohammed, a boy with an addict father, many of the voic­es we hear or peo­ple we see are unnamed. Whisps of nar­ra­tive are pre­sent­ed before mov­ing on; we return to some fig­ures and not to oth­ers. Yet the entranc­ing nature of the visu­als keeps us engrossed, and quick­ly it becomes clear that a coher­ent view isn’t the filmmaker’s con­cern, and nor should it be the viewer’s.

Beshir’s deci­sion to refrain from rush­ing to sit­u­ate the view­er in a cer­tain head­space can cer­tain­ly be a bar­ri­er to ful­ly engag­ing with Faya Dayi, but it also stands as its strength. There is an entire­ly straight­for­ward way of mak­ing a docu­d­ra­ma about this sub­ject, yet Beshir’s bold approach leaves much more of a last­ing memory.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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