Cinema Derive - XALA 1975
Open: 19:30 - 22:00 hrs
Tickets: € 3
XALA 1975
(The Curse)
Directed by Sembène Ousmane
123 minutes
In Wolof and French, with English subtitles
The legendary director of this movie was born and raised in Senegal. He worked as a mason building walls in the cities, then was involved in heavy military conflicts before he traveled to France where he worked as a dock worker in Marseille. With the help of others he began writing novels with his very primitive grasp of French. His books were published, which in the beginning focused primarily on the situation of minorities in France. At one point he was inspired to make movies, and tried to get into the film school in Paris but was rejected. So we ended up going to the film Institute in Moscow, which accepted him with open arms. After graduating he made one movie in France (Black Girl, La noire de...) and then returned to Senegal knocking out a steady stream of groundbreaking movies, while continuing to write his books.
This movie is his adaptation of a novel he wrote in 1973. Ousmane had lived in many worlds of course... Africa, France, the Soviet Union.. and therefore he was able to see the larger picture - not just from textbooks, but from lived experience. So of course he supported African independence, since he knew better than perhaps anyone else, the methods of colonialism. But as countries struggled to gain their independence, he also saw they were still gripped by their colonial past, accepting many of the same ingrained hierarchies and hypocrisies. In the end, so-called 'white money' was still controlling the government and those in power. In this film Ousmane is critical of so-called modernized Africa... taking potshots at everything from fake socialism to old superstitions, while taking aim especially at outdated traditions such as having three wives. He does this with incredible insight and a wicked sense of humor. In this case, the film's protagonist is a wealthy businessman who acquires wives as trophies, but amid his latest power conquest he finds himself sexually impotent. He feels he has been hexed, and soon the word is getting around that he can't fuck anymore, ruining his reputation. He becomes desperate and what unfolds is a sharp satire of power in post-colonial Senegal.
This is the kind of movie that demands we look at our own ridiculousness and shortcomings, no matter where in the world we are living and what culture we are in. The government of Senegal was clearly not happy with this flick and censored it heavily before it could be released.
Here are a few lines from a poem by Ousmane:
We have to caress things softly but deeply.
The reader should sometimes stop and think.
I'm an artisan, a shoe maker who needs to know the animal that made the
leather.
Africa should laugh at its own mistakes. I myself am a knot of
contradictions. I am that Africa.
CINEMA DÉRIVE
Overtoom 301 2nd floor - Ventilator space
Doors open at 19:30, film starts at 20:00
3 euros (cash preferred)
