Sembene: The African Screen

"We must understand our traditions before we can hope to understand ourselves."
--Ousmane Sembene

Though the typical American film goer is largely unfamiliar with the African (and especially the country of Senegal)cinema, nonetheless the name of Ousmane Sembene has emerged to great critical prominence on the international screen. As the leading filmmaker of the surprisingly active Senegalese cinema, Sembene has created a body of works that artistically probes the historic and contemporary problems of Africa. In the process, his films has given an expressive voice to the thoughts and feelings of his fellow countrymen and Africans.

Sembene was born in 1923 in the village of Ziguinchor in southern Senegal. At an early age he choice not to follow in his father's profession as a fisherman. Instead, he drifted through a series of jobs as a mechanic, a mason, and a sharpshooter in the French army during World War Two. By 1948, he had traveled from Senegal to France where he worked as a longshoreman in Marseilles and became a militant union organizer.

It was also during this time that Sembene began to write poems and stories. His first novel, Le Docker Noir, was published in 1956 and earned critical praise in both Africa and Europe. With such other novels as Xala, Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu, and Dombaye, Sembene established himself as a major writer.

By 1961, Sembene had become increasingly interested in film making and he received a grant to study at the Moscow Film Institute under the Soviet director Mark Donskoi. When he returned to Senegal, Sembene began working on a series of short films and, in 1965, made his first feature with the production of Black Girl.

The films in this program represent two specific aspects of Sembene's concerns. The October 10 presentation of Ceddo (1977) is a major example of Sembene's interest in critically reconstructing the events and issues of Senegalese history.

The word "ceddo" refers to the common village people who live under the feudalistic system presented in the film. While the power struggles and revolutions of the film are motivated by the political desires of the various tribal and religious leaders of the film, it is the "ceddo" who are presented by Sembene as the heroes and victims
of historic events.

The October 17 screening of Xala (1974) presents Sembene's caustic view of modern Africa and the problems of the independent African state. The main character of Xala is a successful African businessman who, despite his talk of African heritage and identity, speaks in French instead of his native language, drinks only bottled water from Europe, and can't live without the air conditioner. Then he is struck by the "xala," a curse of impotence which sends him on a panic-ridden search of doctors, soothsayers, and shamans, a journey which forces him to face his own identity. Sembene's unrelenting attack upon hypocrisy and self-deceit has made Xala one of his most controversial films.

The film Emitai (1971), to be shown on October 31, invokes recent African history and tribal mythology and religion. The film is set during the final days of World War Two and describes the clash which took place between the French army and the Diolas tribe in the Casamance region of Senegal.

The word "Emitai" is the name for the god of thunder in the religion of the Diolas people and the unique relationship between these people and their gods is one of the major themes of the film. For the Diolas, the gods and spirits are real and Sembene attempts to capture in Emitai the unique sense of reality as it is felt and seen by these people.

The 1968 film Mandabi concludes the series on November 7. In Mandabi (translation: the money order), Sembene creates a poignant satire in which he details the bizarre clashes which exists between the influences of European culture and ancient African customs. The film's main character quickly discovers that the simple task of cashing a money order can, and does, become a major point of conflict between Third World bureaucracy and the surviving structures of European colonization.

Mandabi also becomes, for Sembene, a study of the vices and virtues of the common people of Africa. Sembene is sharp and bitter in his attacks on the deceptions used by many of the characters in Mandabi. In turn, he finds in his hero an ultimate expression of traditional virtue.

Africa Real-to-Reel

One of the important, overriding concerns of the Third World cinema is the need to achieve control over the media images of one's own people and culture. Further, as in the case of the African cinema, there is also the struggle not simply to control the images, but also to purge from the screen the inaccurate and dehumanizing stereotypes that have predominated in the Western controlled film and television industry. The modern history of the African cinema has been an on-going process of reclaiming, as well as reexamining, their traditions and history in a vital effort to rediscover their identity. Or as the Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembene once stated: "We must understand our traditions before we can hope to understand ourselves."

Sembene's pursuit of this understanding has predominated in his work as a poet, novelist, critic, and filmmaker and his seminal position in the African cinema is due not only to the fact that he directed the first totally African film with his 1963 production of Borom Sarret, but also because of the consistently precise and audacious perspective that he brings to his cinematic studies of modern Africa. In his early films, such as Borom Sarret and Black Girl (Senegal 1965), Sembene concerned himself with the realities, and disparities, of post-colonial Senegal as reflected within the interiorized thoughts and feelings of the central characters in each film. In part, Sembene is attempting to force the viewer into a direct confrontation with the inner pain and despairing humanity of characters who are otherwise denied a voice within the social arena. Further, Sembene presents a bitter portrait of an alienated African psychology that is forced to define itself within the context of an unsympathetic, European derived system of values.

A recurring history of exploitation has long plagued such African countries as Senegal. Even before the period of French colonization, the region of Senegal was vulnerable to the political manipulations of empire-builders and religious proselytes. Islam, which arrived in the region soon after the religion's founding, originally offered a vocal force in opposition to slavery and feudalism. In turn, the early Islamic imams were willing to co-exist with the fetishistic shamans of the various cultures in the area. In time, however, Islamic leaders became increasingly concerned with aggregating their political power and, in the process, they began collaborating with both colonial forces and elements in the slave trade. This history is the background to the narrative of Njangaan (Senegal 1974) by Manama Johnson Traore. This film, which is the most critically praised of Traore's work, also offers an introduction to the second generation of Senegalese filmmakers who emerged during the 1970s.

Liberation through violent revolution was a necessary process for many modern African countries and the film Sambtzanga (Angola 1972]. presents an incisive and intimate view of Portuguese oppression and Angolais resistance and its effects upon one individual woman. The director of the film, Sarah Maldoror, was the wife of an Angolais resistance leader and, as part of her training in film production, had worked as the assistant director on Gillo Pontecorvo's production of The Battle of Algiers (Italy 1966). While the film contains a highly charged and vibrant sense of agitprop similar to Pontecorvo's work, Sambizanga also offers an emotional sense of one's own personal loss in the wake of historic forces.

The traditional structures of the African folktale has had a profound influence on the African cinema. Wend Kuuni (Burkina Faso 1982J, directed by Gaston Kabore, uses the poetic rhythms and narrative concerns of the African folktale and successfully attempts a recreation of a style of storytelling that predates European influence. In so doing, Wend Kuuni experiments with this oral tradition as the basis for a visual art form.

The merger between cinematic language and traditional African narrative forms is taken even further in Jom, the Story of a People (Senegal 1982) by Ababacar Samb Makharam. The film presents an epic overview of the history of Senegal within the structure of a tale told by a griot. Griots are the itinerant poets and musicians of Senegal who has the responsibility of recounting and maintaining the history of a tribe or people and, because of their duty in preserving the memories of their people, the griots hold an especially important place within the West African cultural community. The role of the griot was, perhaps, best stated by Sembene: "His work reflects and synthesizes the problems, the struggles, and the hopes of his people," In Jom, the Story of a People, Makharam's creates the film equivalent of a griot1s tale with all of its musical and moral strengths intact.