The Great Movies III

Among the most important items in his stock are batteries, needed for portable radios and flashlights in this district without electricity. The radio stations are in the cities, and broadcast words and music reflecting dangerous freedoms. When the frustrated all-male village council meets to ponder the challenge of Colle and moolaade, it doesn't occur to them, of course, that women might have perfectly good reasons for not wanting to be circumcised. They blame the outside. The radios. They order a sweep of the village to confiscate all the radios, which are deposited in a big pile, some of them still turned on. This pile becomes a central image of the film, and inevitably evokes bonfires of hated books, or videos, or rock'n'roll, or people.

The construction of Sembene's film is subtle and seductive. He spends little time denouncing female circumcision, and a great deal of time studying the human nature of dissent and conformity. There is humor in the paradoxes that the men debate, and in their impotence against their women, and suspense when the prodigal son returns from Paris. On the most fundamental of levels, this is an entertaining film. Also a beautiful one, as we admire the artistry of the architecture, and appreciate how the people of the village live within the rules and respect them, even when opposing them. These people, despite some of their practices, are deeply decent and civilized, and Sembene loves them for it. The movie contains less outrage than regret.

Sembene's death at eighty-four, on June 9, zoos, brought to a close an extraordinary life, one that parallels in some ways Nelson Mandela's. Neither was born into wealth and privilege, and both achieved greatness. Although he was known for years as "the father of the African cinema," and wrote six novels before he decided films would reach a larger audience, Sembene as a young man (I learn from IMDb.com) was a mechanic, a bricklayer, a soldier for the Free French, a labor leader, an autoworker, and a stevedore. His first novel came in 1956, his first movie (Black Girl) in 1966.

That film told the story of the ill treatment a young Senegalese woman finds when she goes to work as an au pair in Paris. But Sembene did not devote himself to dramatizing the evils of whites against blacks on his continent. He was more interested in drama, conflicts, and comedy within the vibrant African civilization.

Consider his wonderful film Guelwaar (1992). In his country, Muslims live side by side with Catholics, and his story involves a mix-up that accidentally results in the burial of a Catholic body in a Muslim cemetery. When an attempt to move the body is made, the Muslims are outragednot because the body is there, but because the removal would desecrate the cemetery. A local policeman, himself a Muslim, tries to defuse the situation and prevent a nasty fight.

This story could involve stereotypes and fan the flames of prejudice. But not with Sembene. He portrays all the characters as people who are reasonable, by their own lights, and would be content with a solution that did not violate their beliefs. And all religions contain a fuzzy area that allows common sense to sometimes win over dogma. All it takes here is a persuasive policeman, and some wise people on both sides who are weary of the hotheads. Sembene's work so often dealt with his society from the inside, with sympathy, insight, and the sly wit of a Bernard Shaw. He made political films that didn't seem political, and comedies that were very serious. His regret was that many of his films, including Moolaade, were not welcome in Africa. He won awards at Venice, Karlovy Vary, and many other important festivals; Moolaade won first place in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. But according to IMDb, the film has played nowhere in Africa except Morocco. The message is not heard where it is needed.

Ousmane Sembene was born into an Africa where a black man was not expected to write novels or direct films. He dedicated his life to making brave and useful films that his continent needed to see. He did that even knowing they would probably not be seen. They exist. They wait. They honor his memory.

y Fair Lady is the best and most unlikely of musicals, during which I cannot decide if I am happier when the characters are talking or when they are singing.' he songs are literate and beloved; some romantic, some comic, some nonsense, some surprisingly philosophical, every single one wonderful.' he dialogue by Alan Jay Lerner wisely retains a great deal of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, himself inspired by Ovid's Metamorphosis.