Black Tea

The opening credits of Black Tea paint a telling picture of the bit-by-bit film funding model that so many independent features are dependent on. There are multiple production companies from multiple contrasting countries (France, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Côte d’Ivoire) and a viewer has to sit through a weirdly long succession of those production company logo cards before the movie even begins. Perhaps each producer and financier wanted creative input. Perhaps this explains why the feature feels like a series of compromises that ultimately add up to very little.

After abandoning her own wedding ceremony in Côte d’Ivoire, Aya (Nina Mélo) winds up in Guangzhou, China, living in an area popular with the African expat community, charmingly dubbed Chocolate City. Director Abderrahmane Sissako doesn’t bother to tell the audience how much time elapsed since Aya fled her wedding, but it’s enough for her to have found a job (at a tea shop), a considerable network of friends, and to speak fluent Mandarin. There’s mutual attraction between Aya and her boss Cai (Chang Han), as well as much shallow posturing about race, identity and a sense of belonging.

There’s an attempt to make the discussion of tea between Aya and Cai a sensual experience, but it’s about as alluring as an abscessed tooth. The apparent age difference and power imbalance between the two, as well as Cai’s suggested preference for African women, all combine to make this part of the plot a little creepy. The film certainly tries to be romantic, but the dialogue is distractingly clunky in this area. It’s like certain lines were generated by an AI system trained on the lyrics Taylor Swift discarded. Kudos to the actors for doing their best to sell a line like, “I can see in your eyes that someone loves you.”

Black Tea calls to mind a long-running soap opera in its structure – lots of small scenes that barely advance the plot. Supporting characters are introduced, given the seed of what could be a subplot, and then abandoned. The saving grace of the movie is Nina Mélo as Aya, who’s called upon to act in French, English and Mandarin. Aya is portrayed with such earnestness and intuition that it’s a shame this strong character didn’t have a stronger film.

Oliver Johnston

Black Tea does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2024 coverage here.

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