The Destiny of Lesser Animals at New Directors/New Films

The New Directors/New Films festival, wrapping up today, seems made for movies like The Destiny of Lesser Animals, writer Yao B. Nunoo and director Deron Albright's exploration of Ghanian national identity through the lens of a police drama. Sure, the action sequences look a bit silly and the politics verge on the heavy-handed, but the tale of Boniface Koomsin (played with gusto by Nunoo), a policeman trying recover his counterfeit passport so he can flee Ghana for the US, captivates and enthralls, as do the relationships Boniface develops with the chief inspector of the Accra police force and an enigmatic street urchin. In the Q-and-A that followed, Nunoo conjured Langston Hughes by calling the movie the story of a "dream deferred," and the film sharpens Hughes' point for a pan-African present: to make the world a better place, it suggests, individual dreams may have to dry up, fester, sag, and explode.

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