Night of the Kings is a sweeping, slightly surreal prison drama that highlights the need for storytelling and laments the cycle of political violence so prevalent in many environments. It’s set in an actual prison in the Ivory Coast, La MACA, where the prisoners are free to roam about with little supervision.

Director Philippe Lacôte uses the setting to create a surreal, Fellini–esqe scene where the camera rolls by hallways of shirtless prisoners who work in concert, more like an organism than as individuals. The entire prison is overseen by Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu), a massive figure whose days are obviously numbered: we first see him huffing on an oxygen machine. A crew of younger prisoners led by Half-Mad (Jean Cyrille Digbeau) impatiently wait for him to give up the ghost so Half-Mad can assume leadership of the prison. They are in a tenuous standoff when a new and young inmate arrives—Blackbeard has a plan.

Whenever there is a red moon, Blackbeard picks a prisoner and bestows on him the name of “Roman,” who is now forced to tell a story that has to last all throughout the night, which the prisoners then reenact. They feed him and give him water and dress him and treat him very well. It doesn’t take Roman, or the audience, too long to figure what this means and what’s in store for him.

The story Roman makes up is based on a real-life criminal he used to run with, Zama King, but he sets the story in a mythical Africa of the past, which we are suddenly thrust into as Lacôte leaves the prison for the world of the Roman’s story. Still, both the tale of Roman and Zama King are suffused and saturated with bloodshed and violence.

Lacôte makes an interesting point here. The prisoners need the stories to survive prison life, but violence is not abated in Roman’s story nor in the prisoners’ lives. Storytelling is a temporary reprieve, but in a society rife with cyclical violence, the tales reflect that rather than contain or end it. It’s less a cynical realization and more a clear-eyed one.

The acting across the board is superb. Everyone is fully invested. Tientcheu is an imposing Blackbeard. Koné Bakary, as Roman, nails the combination of fear and determination as he slowly realizes his impending fate and works a plan to escape it. And there’s Denis Lavant, the French actor who, upon his appearance, guarantees that the movie you are watching is probably off the beaten path and more than a bit weird.

Kudos goes to cinematographer Tobie Marier-Robitaille. Meandering down hallways and through makeshift tents, peering down nooks and crannies, Marier-Robitaille’s camera suggests the hugeness and the claustrophobia inherent in such a place as La MACA.

By the time morning comes, everything has changed yet everything remains the same, which is another point that Lacôte hammers home. In a society riven with violence, survival is a gift, humanity a luxury.