HEROISM AND DEFIANCE IN AN AFRICAN VILLAGE

By A. O. SCOTT
The New York Times, 10/13/04

The Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene is routinely referred to as the father of postcolonial African cinema, but he is a patriarch whose feminist sympathies have been evident from the beginning. Throughout his career, from "Black Girl" (1966), which is thought to be the first feature film ever made by a director from sub-Saharan Africa, to "Faat Kine" (2000), he has frequently explored the hardships facing African women and their capacity for resilience and heroism.

In his new film, "Moolaade," the women of a small village in Burkina Faso rebel against female genital mutilation, a subject that may repel squeamish viewers. That would be a shame, not only because of the intrinsic importance of the subject, but because to skip "Moolaade" would be to miss an opportunity to experience the embracing, affirming, world-changing potential of humanist cinema at its finest.

While he does not minimize pain and cruelty, neither does Mr. Sembene traffic in harshness or despair. And while this film is troubling, it is also infused with a remarkable buoyancy of spirit. It is, at heart, a strike movie --a kind of West African "Norma Rae" -- with startling (but entirely appropriate) elements of musical comedy blended in, all of it conveyed with an eye for the nuances of character and social life that is almost Chekovian. At 81, having organized unions, written novels and directed a handful of immortal films, Mr. Sembene surely has nothing left to prove, but "Moolaade" may well be his autumnal masterpiece - a rousingly political film that is a critique of traditional forms of authority and a celebration of the warmth and dynamism of African village life.

The title refers to a protective spirit invoked by Collé (Fatoumata Coulibaly), the film's hero, when four young girls appear on her doorstep seeking sanctuary. Along with two others (who have disappeared from the village altogether), the girls have fled from a purification ceremony that involves genital cutting, and as long as the Moolaade is in effect, they cannot be removed from the enclosed cluster of huts where their protector and her extended family live.
Collé, the no-nonsense, pipe-smoking second wife of a village elder, is already regarded as something of a rebel, since she refused to allow her daughter, Amasatou (Salimata Traoré), to undergo the procedure referred to in the subtitles as excision.

The scars on Collé's belly testify to a childbirth made dangerous and traumatic by the after-effects of mutilation, and she is determined to save her daughter from a similar fate, or a worse one. Her decision seems to have been tolerated as a personal foible and a matter for gossip. In sheltering other women's daughters from the fearsome, red-robed priestesses who perform the ritual with small, red-handled knives, she finds herself cast as a dangerous subversive, accused of going against religious teachings and of threatening the social order of the village.

"Moolaade" is certainly a potent and timely polemic against a custom that many Africans are turning against, but its dramatic richness comes from the generous, patient precision with which Mr. Sembene observes that social order in all its complex, sometimes contradictory aspects. His first shots survey the architecture and geography of the town and its households. Throughout the film he notes the details of work, rest, domesticity and religious ritual that make up the daily routine in a place where small courtesies are observed even when events takes a violent, contentious turn.

The society he depicts is self-enclosed, ruled by Muslim and pre-Islamic traditions, which are symbolized by the mosque and the spirit-possessed anthill that stand side by side in the main square. But the village, Djerisso, is not entirely shut off from the outside world. The women, as they tend to their work and children, depend on their radios for news and distraction. The film's plot is advanced by two semioutsiders, a peddler named Mercenary (Dominique T. Zeïda) and a chieftain's son who has returned from France with crisp linen suits and crisper banknotes, which he passes out to the dazzled villagers.

These two men influence the outcome of Collé's revolt, but the film, the second in a projected trilogy that Mr. Sembene had said was devoted to "heroism in daily life," locates that quality squarely with Collé and the women who join her cause. "Moolaade" tells a satisfying, accessible story, complete with detestable villains, brave heroes, suspense, intrigue and a finale that will bring tears of amazement to your eyes.

The movie encompasses horror and heartbreak without sacrificing its basic, tough-minded optimism. It also dramatizes, with a kind of clarity I have rarely seen on film, how a society can change from within, how even well-intentioned authority can become cruel and corrupt, and above all, how a single, stubborn act of reflexive resistance can alter the shape of the world. "Moolaade" illuminates the agonies of women in some parts of Africa, but rather than asking you to pity them in their plight, it leaves you envying their bravery and admiring their resolve.

To read Guy Flatley's interview with Ousmane Sembene, conducted shortly after the director's "Mandabi" played the 1969 New York Film Festival, click here.