MOOLAADE
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
New Yorker Films
Grade: B+
Directed by: Ousmane Sembene
Written by: Ousmane Sembene
Cast: Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maimouna Helene Diarra, Salimata
Traore, Aminata Dao, Dominique Zeida
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 9/28/04
In a brief monologue that serves as an introduction to a major
song in "Fiddler on the Roof," Tevye asks himself what justifies
the ways of his fellow human beings and himself. "I don't
know," he states, bewildered, "But it's tradition." There's a lot to
be said for tradition. In the absence of a written guide to tell us
how to act, we tend to behave in much the way that previous
generations did. The barbeque and fireworks on the Fourth of
July are not mandated by the Declaration of Independence, but
they're a tradition. Ditto the gathering around the TV on a
Sunday afternoon with friends and family to watch the game.
Some traditions, however, are frightfully bad and deserve to be
overthrown. Female genital mutilations is one of them, a
practice followed in various villages in some thirty-eight
countries on the African continent. Some tribal elders, who
maintain the tradition, state that Islam mandates the practice.
Men say they will not marry women who have not been
"purified," i.e. who have not had their genitalia excised by
women who carry on the practice. Actually this mutilation has
been going on at least since the days of Herodotus, but to make
sure the women continue to expose themselves to a practice
that not only deprives them for life of sexual pleasure but has
been responsible for perhaps thousands of deaths from
bleeding, the elders, joined by no small number of the village
women, often seek out and confiscate radios. The fear is that
women will discover through the media that Islam mandates no
such thing.
Ousmane Sembene, sometimes called the father of the Sub-
Saharan African film, wrote and directs "Moolaade," a film that
can be considered not simply artful propaganda against female
genital mutilation but stands as a poignant portrait of an African
village. Various types are represented: the tribal elders who
function in what appears to be the complete absence of a
central police force; the women who carry short knives to carry
out the "purification"; the French-speaking merchant selling
overpriced exotic products; the well-to-do son of the village
elder who has just returned from Paris with a boatload of
goodies, including a TV; the young girls who right down the line
protest the practice of circumcision; and one particularly heroic
women, Colle (Fatoumata Coulibaly) who stands up to the
forces of reaction, and who gives sanctuary (moolaade) to four
girls who are being chased by the evil knife-wielders. That the
dramatic conclusion of the conflict pitting the cutters, both men
and women, against the women liberators–and at least one
influential man–is predictable takes nothing away from the
power of the film.
What is particularly ironic is that while the men joke about
erections and insist that they will not marry a woman who has
not been circumcised, the women of their dreams feel nothing
from the sexual act except pain and the possibility of death.
Sembene's cinematographer, Dominique Gentil, shot the film in
a small village in Burkina Faso, one which has the obligatory
mosque–which in itself could rank as a tourist attraction in that it
resembles similar constructions in Turkey's Capadokia. We
watch as the women pair off to cool themselves down with a
well, one fo whom must jump up and down on a pedestal to
keep the water running. Sembene places as much emphasis on
framing his work as on the story, bringing out the colorful attire
of the women, though one wonders about the source of the
revenue, the CFA's, held by men who appear not to be gainfully
employed. The final irony is dealt with as a TV antenna
competes with the traditional ostrich egg figure on top of a
mosque. Though Newton Minow here in the West has called
TV a wasteland, it is anything but that in village Africa, where its
programs can be the source of liberating enlightenment.
Not Rated. 124 minutes © Harvey Karten
at harveycritic@cs.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 38782 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1326704 X-RT-TitleID: 10004518 X-RT-SourceID: 570 X-RT-AuthorID: 1123 X-RT-RatingText: B+
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