Though the era is undefined, it is presumably set in the 13th century in the Mali Empire and is a heroic quest narrative featuring magic and precognition.

Niamanto Sanogo plays Niankoro's father, who is tracking his son through the Bambara, Fulani and Dogon lands of West Africa using a magical wooden post to guide him.

Soma sacrifices an albino man and a wild dog to appease the gods who grant him power to hunt his son.

Nianankoro and Attou reach his uncle Djigui, who was blinded long ago when he chose to use the artifact of Kore's Wing for his people.

He gives the relic to Nianankoro and tells him and Attou, who is pregnant, that their children will become a nation who will face hardship and be sold in slavery, but ultimately prosper.

[8] Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader calling Yeelen "extraordinarily beautiful and mesmerizing fantasy...Sublimely mixing the matter-of-fact with the uncanny, this wondrous work provides an ideal introduction to a filmmaker who is, next to Ousmane Sembene, probably Africa’s greatest director.

"[9] Richard Brody of The New Yorker praised it as "a masterwork of metaphysical realism," writing that "the [film's] title means 'brightness,' and it's ultimately the cosmic power of light itself that comes to the fore, by way of a terrifying conflagration.

The filmmaker’s point of view, however, is steadfastly terrestrial and political: he dramatizes patriarchal abuses and the high price of resistance, however legitimate.