It’s as sadly repetitive a story for Europe as it is for the US: would-be immigrants risking all for a better opportunity elsewhere. In “The Pirogue,” they are from the West African nation of Senegal, and they are trying to reach Spain. Thirty-one of them — all men, save one female stowaway — crowd into the boat of the title, a painted wooden craft with no cover and a couple of motors that look barely sufficient for a daylong fishing excursion.
The pilot is Baye Laye (Souleymane Seye Ndiaye), whose attempt at being a wrestling manager crumples in one mesmerizing match. He’s lured into the voyage by a smooth-talking people smuggler, despite the worries of his wife and his attachment to a young son. The weeklong journey unfolds with awful inevitability. Given such a large mass of people, director Moussa Touré opts for quick, sharp sketches — a man from the inland who’s so terrified of the sea he must be tied down, a religious older man and Baye Laye’s musician brother, who dreams of playing in Europe.
Touré can’t entirely overcome the predictability of the premise; like any disaster movie, it’s a process of picking out which passengers will survive. The conscious irony is that the country these characters are abandoning is visibly, achingly poor, but it is also beautiful, and its ways are warm and familiar. In the poignant, symmetrical end, Touré leaves the idea that the real yearning of these people is for a fair shake in their own home.