This film was directed by the the Senegalese writer and director Ousmane Sembène. It tells the story of Colle (Fatoumata Coulibaly), the second of her husband's three wives. She is the most intelligent, humorous, charming, and is also loved most by her husband, a temperate enlightened man. Her nubile daughter, Amasatou, has got engaged, although she had not undergone female genital cutting, which is considered a prerequisite for marriage by the local tradition. Collé opposes this practise. This has led the elders in the village, men as well as women, to despise her daughter. Amasatou herself unceasingly requests to have her genitals cut to secure her social status and marriagability, but Collé remains unmoved. She is willing to protect not only her daughter from the life-threatening genital cutting but also four little girls who joined her to escape this practise. Collé pulls up a symbolic witchcraft, the colorful rope
Moolaadé, across the gate of the family's premises.
Moolaadé (pulaar word that means protection, the right to asylum) interdicts the old women, who carry out the practise and who have been searching for the girls, from entering the house.
As this month it is the Month of the Black History, in the Cinema Club we have decided to screened this movie. You will see in Colle the powerful woman that the Senegalese writer Leopold Senghor, father of the negritud, described in his poem Black Woman
Naked woman, black woman.
Clothed with your colour which is life,
with your form which is beauty!
In your shadow I have grown up; the
gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes.
And now, high up on the sun-baked
pass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon,
I come upon you, my Promised Land,
And your beauty strikes me to the heart
like the flash of an eagle.
Naked woman, dark woman
Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures
of black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouth
Savannah stretching to clear horizons,
savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind's
eager caresses
Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering
under the Conqueror's fingers
Your solemn contralto voice is the
spiritual song of the Beloved.
Naked woman, dark woman
Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on the
athlete's flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of Mali
Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the
night of your skin.
Delights of the mind, the glinting of red
gold against your watered skin
Under the shadow of your hair, my care
is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes.
Naked woman, black woman,
I sing your beauty that passes, the form
that I fix in the Eternal,
Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to
feed the roots of life.
The filn won Prix Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. A part from that, it was well acclaimed by the critics.
"Sembene provides not only a fascinating glimpse into the culture of tropical Africa, but also a powerful account of the social turmoil which bubbles beneath the surface."
Jamie Woolley. BBC. 31/05/2005.
See the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCgCZVPQk7s
