“Makala.” The worthy winner of the top prize in the Critics’ Week program at Cannes last year, Emmanuel Gras’ heartbreaker of a documentary follows a Congolese man, Kabwita Kasongo, who supports his family by making, transporting and selling charcoal. That description doesn’t come close to capturing the extraordinary beauty and lyrical force of this movie, which draws us deeply into Kasongo’s everyday world of crushing poverty and Sisyphean struggle. Seamless in its flow and intimacy, “Makala” (the Swahili word for “coal”) plays, in the best sense, like a dramatic feature, guided by a hand that feels no less compassionate for being so invisible.
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