Mwanza Mujila’s Tram 83 is a very raw portrait of a post-Colonial state tucked into south central Africa. Tram 83 itself seems to be a bar or whorehouse near a railway station anchoring the urban wasteland between miners and soldiers and tourists, although not the class of tourist one would expect in Miami Beach or Disneyworld,

The dialogue between Lucien, a writer, and Requiem, his pal/agent, is flinty.

Jazz blasts from the stage. Scantily-clad waitresses deliver cold beer and liquor to the tables. Prostitutes and their clientele rotate endlessly in the washrooms.

I am reminded of the super-realism of Bulgakov, or Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, or Daniel Dafoe’s London. A funny but nightmarish landscape of broken down institutions, violence, and crooked cops.

It seems only to come alive at night.

I almost expect Anthony Bourdain to pop up with a voice-over “I just happened to meet an old friend along the way to the charming neighbourhood bordellos...”