The Screen Score: Harmattan Season

Twenty-three points is a wide gap, and wide gaps are usually a sign that a film is doing something deliberate that a portion of its audience did not sign up for. That is the case here.

The craft is not in question. The film is composed with real discipline, and it withholds on purpose. What the audience score is registering is not a failure of execution but a broken promise: the marketing sold a thriller and the film delivers a study.

Reading the gap

Qollom does not average these two figures, and this piece is the reason. An average of 72 would describe a film that pleased everyone slightly. No such film exists here.

The professional score says the thing is well made. The audience score says the thing was mis-sold. Both are useful. Collapsed into one number, neither survives.

We knew we were making a slow film. We did not entirely control how it was sold.

The director, at the post-screening Q&A