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What did you learn about the director Ousmane Sembène ?
Born in January 1923, Ou
What did you learn about the director Ousmane Sembène ?
Born in January 1923, Ousmane Sembène was a Senegalese film director, producer and writer. His mother tongue was Wolof, but he also had knowledge of French and some Arabic, which allowed him to attend madrasa, a school for Muslim boys, as well as a French school. But clashes with the principal led to him leaving school in 1936. The son of a fisherman, Sembène worked with his father for a time, but he was prone to seasickness and so in 1938 he left home and moved to Dakar, where he worked a variety of odd jobs. In 1944, he was drafted into the French Army and later served with the Free French Forces in World War II. (Ousmane Sembène)
After stowing away to France in 1947, Sembène worked at a factory in Paris, then later, while working on the docks at Marseille, he became active in the French trade union movement. He eventually joined the Communist party, and participated in a strike to help prevent the delivery of weapons bound for the French colonial war in Vietnam. (Ousmane Sembène)
Sembène’s first novel, The Black Docker, was released in 1956. The book, which was written in French, a language that the author had taught himself to read and write, drew on many of his own life experiences. His next novel, Oh Country, My Beautiful People!, published in 1957, led to international acclaim for the young writer, and he received invitations from around the world, with Communist countries like China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union being particularly eager to welcome him. Following another novel and a collection of short stories, Sembène traveled to Moscow, where he spent a year studying filmmaking under Mark Donskoy, a Soviet director. (Ousmane Sembène)
Sembène, whose early novels had focused on the racial and economic oppression of the French colonial government, shifted his focus to the corrupt African elites that took their place. This body of work, which included such acclaimed novels as Xala and God’s Bits of Wood, cemented Sembène’s reputation as one of the leading figures in African post-colonial literature. (Ousmane Sembène)
Hoping to reach a much wider audience, Sembène turned his attention to film. After a couple of short films, he produced his first feature, La Noire de…, which was based on one of his short stories. The film gave him the distinction of being the first ever sub-Saharan director to release a feature film. La Noire de… went on to win the Prix Jean Vigo, shining an international spotlight on both African film and Sembène himself. In the years that followed, he made numerous films, many of which received awards at prestigious film festivals, including the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. (Ousmane Sembène)
Following a short illness, Sembène died at his home in Dakar, Senegal in June 2007. He was 84 years old. (Ousmane Sembène)
How is this movie not typical of the films you normally view?
This movie is not typical of the films I normally view in a number of ways. Most of the movies I watch are made to entertain rather than inform, which is the case with Sembène’s film, Mandabi, which was based on the director’s own novel, The Money Order. The movie contains all the elements of good fiction: it was sad, funny, alarming. But the main feeling I walked away with after viewing the film was frustration. All of Dieng’s troubles were the result of an inability to adapt to a way of life that had been forced upon him by the French. If it had been an American movie, Dieng would have succeeded in the end, since American audiences are for the most part intolerant of unhappy endings. But Mandabi remains true to the time it depicts, when there were very few happy endings to be had.
How does the film depict post-independent Senegalese society?
The movie provides a rather bleak depiction of post-independent Senegalese society. Poverty seems to be rampant throughout the society, with people continuously begging. Dieng is unemployed and lives off credit to support his two wives and seven children. And then, when he does have an opportunity to make a little money by cashing the money order, French bureaucracy makes it all but impossible for him to do so. People seem polite and friendly and willing to do their religious duty and help out, but hardly anyone is in a position to do so. And even when they are better off, like Dieng’s nephew, Mbaye, they prove unscrupulous and willing to rob their own family. Or the men at the photography shop, who happily take Dieng’s money, while all the time knowing they have no intention of providing the photograph that he has paid them for. The only way for an individual to thrive, it seems, is through greed and corruption, which makes it all but impossible for the country itself to thrive.
What “message” do you get from the movie? Justify your answer.
The message that I got from the film Mandabi is that French colonialism made it nearly impossible for a country in colonial Africa to thrive, whether pre- or post-independence. The maze of bureaucratic hurdles that prevent Dieng from cashing the money order are foisted on a people that are completely unprepared to deal with them, and no one has the patience, or inclination, to help out. Everyone is out for themselves. Lip service is paid to religious charity, but people are much more interested in receiving than giving. Even Dieng’s wives are happy to buy on credit, with little if any regard for the consequences. Colonialism has left the country horribly scarred and unable to cope with the greed, corruption, and poverty left in the French colonial government’s wake.
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