Wijdan: The Mystery of Gnawa Trance Music

Director: John Allen

Possible Pictures

By Brogan Bentley

While Africa is undoubtedly a place of ancient origin, the story of Wijdan is one which catapults us as viewers to the forefront of modern times and modern people in this distant and spectacular land. It is through the meeting of two peoples that the gap is bridged of their respective music and culture. Even more striking in this emotional movie is the relation of the present to our ancient past. In watching John Allen's fascinating documentary, we discover a connection of the human spirit that really knows no boundaries. Music is the universal language, and the powerful way it brings such disparate groups of people together is an endlessly stirring wonder.

The main characters of this documentary are Sibiri, a bambarra musician of Mali, and Brahim, a gnawi musician of Morocco. The two leaders are brought together at the hands of this team of filmmakers, directed by John Allen, who lend their craft to illustrating the connections shared between the men. Their ancestors have been separated for hundreds of years and by just as many miles. Still, it is through the ancient tradition of Gnawa trance music that the link between these people (otherwise alien and unknown to one another) is so surely identified. And while this journey reminds us of how little we know of our own past at times, it also reminds us of the future and its uncertainty. We see in this film that any sanctity or solace to be found is only through the human connection, and that the only time for such a connection to take place is in the present. The lives of all these musicians seem almost to hang by a thread. They have placed their futures in a life beyond their control, but by trusting the sounds and where they lead them, all involved seem to survive and even thrive. The way the cameras capture their faces is almost hypnotic itself; add on the songs they play and Wijdan feels like real medicine.

Though many of those descendants of the Gnawa tradition were enslaved and pushed northbound into Morocco, the music did not submit to the same oppression that their bodies were forced to endure. On the contrary, we see the spiritual significance of ritual and song in full force. As the eldest daughter of Brahim falls subject to a complete trance, she is exorcized of the pains and passions of those people who were forced away from their Western Saharan land to Morocco.

Sibiri explains that the new locale of time and place has appropriated the Gnawa ways differently, in comparison to those still active in this ritual further south in Mali. For instance, Sibiri and his people do not dance in outright trance as the northerners do, nor do they attach any religious connotation to the songs (the Moroccan's being readers of the Koran/Qu-ran). More so, a spiritual relationship is supreme in which plants, animals and the land reign highest in importance, and through that, knowledge is most prominently gained by Sibiri and his people. In the thick of the Malian appropriated version of the songs, there is no shortage of a precious and invisible presence of wisdom in those making the music. Though ways and practices vary, we cannot overlook the side-by-side comparison of the stringed instruments used by the "virtuosos," as their two instruments share strikingly similar physical attributes.

As it was, Brahim, a French speaking Moroccan, admits to preferring the language of Gnawa, never falling away from the native tongue of a culture from which he has long been geographically separated. Again, the strength of a human's will shines through as the eternal influences are upheld by the love had for them by their earthly descendents and devotees.

Connecting to the distant past seems less and less present as we progress into modernity, leading us to an awkward perception and approach towards past times we know little about. So, a human strength is very much needed in facing this obstacle with nothing other than our hands and heart. Though Simbiri is nervous to tour the town of his distant relative Brahim, it is by held hands that the Malian man is led through the myriad of olden passageways, homes and alleys in the north of Africa's Morocco. The tour is culminated with the combining of the two groups of the Gnawan trance musicians, into the unified musical collective dubbed Wijdan. The joyousness of all those participating is something you can see and feel and almost touch. Very few films have captured this kind of rapture. As an ancient awareness is pulled and tugged on by the mirage-like montages of African rituals, we slip further into the primitive stream of our own consciousness. Reach out a henna-soaked hand, or sing out your most precious song, in reverence to finding the most rooted of your callings: those opportunities which present themselves to live in an eternal flow, and those people who somehow, too, have traveled a long and ancient path, only to intersect yours, as you do theirs, upon passing. Let us call the synchronicity and coming together Wijdan, and know that a film that can take its viewers to this higher place is almost sacred itself.