The exam in the title is the Congolese baccalaureate, dubbed the “State exam”, and the students at the Athénée Royal high school in Kisangani have to pass it whatever it takes: like Joël who, as the film opens, is taking part in a ceremony supposed to help him succeed, they do not want to “end up as market porters”. Here, Dieudo Hamadi – who during DRC’s presidential elections (Atalaku, 2013) elbowed his way through the crowd in search of compelling characters – focuses on a small group of students whose common trait is that they can’t afford to pay the “teacher’s bonus”. Their exclusion from lessons, which in itself is an educational scandal, proves a godsend for cinema: the group is already formed and even rents a house to revise together as part of their “rebel plan”. As the eventual dual sense of the title suggests, the film uses their miniature epic to carry out a revealing examination of the State: alternating between a burlesque and poignant ingenuity, the students’ resourcefulness is, in fact, the less murky side of much more disturbing corruption.
C.G.
