Ousmane Sembène’s Senegal

>> Vues D’Afrique’s tribute to the late director is one of the festival’s highlights

REBEL YELL: Camp de Thiaroye

by MATTHEW HAYS

Film buffs will recall that last year marked the passing of both Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. But sadly, our too-often Eurocentric media made far less of another hugely significant loss in the film universe: Ousmane Sembène, the first filmmaker from an African country to gain international recognition, died in June.

And this year’s Vues d’Afrique—which, once again, features a great selection of films but almost none with English subtitles (odd given that half of the city’s black population is anglophone)—is offering a rare opportunity for Montrealers to catch up on their Sembène. Twelve of Sembène’s films will be screened, most of them with English subtitles.

This is a remarkable retrospective, especially seeing as many of these films aren’t readily available on home video (nor does Global or CF choose to show them as late-night movies). As well as being an amazing artist who received huge critical acclaim, Sembène was a champion of the underdog and seen as emblematic of a Marxist-influenced intellectual rebel.

Screening will be La Noire de… (1966), Sembène’s first feature. Shot in a documentary style but clearly influenced by the New Wave, Black Girl (the film’s English title) focuses on the plight of one Senegalese guest worker who works as a maid in the south of France, where she’s being exploited. The film set the standard for Sembène’s uncompromising look at the ongoing effects of colonialism. La Noire de… would win the coveted Jean Vigo prize.

In 1968 came Mandabi (The Money Order), a bruising and snarky spoof of the emerging leisure class in Senegal, caught between modernity and tradition (with Sembène clearly viewing both camps as deeply flawed). With Emitai (1971), Sembène would continue his exploration of issues surrounding colonialism and its effects on Africans. (He opens the film with a dedication “to all African militants.”) The dramatic feature examines the plight of the Diola people of Senegal, who were resisting French rule throughout WWII. Critic Fernando Croce calls Emitai a “compressed critique of Sembène’s earlier movies writ epic,” and it’s also noteworthy for making the dilemmas facing Senegalese women front and centre.

Sembène would again turn to comedy for Xala (1975), in which a newlywed must face his own impotence on his wedding night. Despite the return to comic turf, iconic American critic Roger Ebert would declare this Sembène’s “most disturbing film.”

GOTTA GET OUT: Dieu a-t-il quitté l’Afrique?

Colonial clashes

In Ceddo (1977), Sembène concocted another potent fable, one that reflected Africa’s history of colonial influences, religious oppression and slavery. This film was banned in Senegal for years, and while the reason was never clear, Sembène himself suggested the authorities did not like his critical depiction of an imam in the film.

In Camp de Thiaroye (1987), Sembène shows us the rebellion of a number of African soldiers near the end of WWII, as they revolt against French authorities. Co-directed by Thierno Faty Snow, the film prompted a Washington Post critic to liken it to “a kind of homemade Glory.”

Guelwaar (1992) had Sembène mining his dark sense of humour: when a Roman Catholic elder dies, his body is mistakenly buried in a Muslim cemetery, igniting religious and ethnic tensions. This entry was both a comedy of errors and a murder mystery, as his family, while peering through scads of bureaucratic red tape, begin to see how their patriarch died. Critic Marjorie Baumgarten praised Guelwaar, writing that “Sembène’s camera catches everything with a simplicity and naturalism that allows us to simultaneously see both the metaphorical forest and the trees.”

Other highlights at the 24th edition of Vues d’Afrique include Dieu a-t-il quitté l’Afrique?, musician Musa Dieng Kala’s directorial debut. This doc examines the lives of five Senegalese men who want to leave Senegal desperately. In Une mémoire oubliée… une génération sacrifiée, Martine Duviella recounts the story of her own Haitian-exile parents.

And La Sensation Haïtienne, directed by Stéphanie Larrue, introduces us to Oni, a francophone Ottawa-based artist of Haitian descent. The doc shows us the slam poet touring schools to spread the good word through her performance art and poetry.

The 24th annual Vues D’Afrique screens
from April 10–20. Info: (514) 284-3322
or www.vuesdafrique.org

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