The setting is Nouadhibou, a small Mauritanian coastal town that functions as a transit point, a stopover on the way to somewhere else. 17- year-old Abdallah has returned here, but only briefly - to visit his mother before he sets out for Europe. Sullen and disconnected, he is very much an outsider in this place, unable to speak or even understand the local language. Instead he watches, becoming a silent observer of life in the village. Through this measured accumulation of anecdotal detail, an impressionistic portrait of daily life emerges. One of the most poignant visions of African life yet committed to film, director Abderrahmane Sissako's second feature is a work of deceptive simplicity. Penetrate its apparently harmonious surface, and one discovers a mass of oppositions. On the one hand, it's an ode to community; on other, it's a celebration of our need to leave our homes and strike out in the world. All contained - and, remarkably, reconciled – within some of the most rigourous and sensually ravishing filmmaking of the past twelve months.