Xala

 

 

Director Ousmane Sembène

 

 

           

XALA      B-                                                                                                                                    aka: The Curse                                                                                                                                 Senegal  (123 mi)  1975 d: Ousmane Sembène

His bitterness had become an inferiority complex in the company of his peers. He imagined himself the object of their looks and the subject of their conversation. He could not endure the asides, the way they laughed whenever he went past, the way they stared at him. His infirmity, temporary though it might be, made him incapable of communicating with his employees, his wives, his children and his business colleagues. When he could allow himself a few moments of escape he imagined himself a carefree child again.

—text from Ousmane Sembène’s Xala (112 pages), 1974, Xala by Sembene Ousmane 

Sembène’s version of Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA (1961), adapting his own 1973 novel by the same name, unleashing a dark social satire targeting corrupt African governmental officials in the post-independence period who are mere figureheads that are easily bribed, while the real power remains behind the scenes as whites continue to rule, as the nation’s resources and the most profitable businesses are still controlled by foreign powers.  The revolutionary change of power from a colonialist state to full independence is a charade of pomp and ceremony, full of celebration and cheer, as whites supposedly accede their positions of privileged status to black Africans who are clueless how to rule, embezzling short-term profits that only temporarily line their pockets while ignoring long-term goals.  At the center of this comical farce is El Hadji Abdou Kader Bèye (Thierno Leye), carefully balancing modernism with traditional ways, proudly taking his position as a respected member of the Dakar Chamber of Commerce, as foreign whites are driven out, supposedly a triumph over colonial forces, publicly walking them out the front door only to return by the back door in their new roles as advisors (with the all-black police noticeably supervised by a lone white figure in sunglasses), leaving behind their valued briefcases that symbolize successful business transactions.  Seeking quick profits, El Hadji diverts large sums of subsidized rice intended for drought-stricken regions, then sells it on the black market while keeping the proceeds for himself.  So why people are starving to death, he’s buying TV’s and cars for his new wife, using the money from European bribes to pay for the luxuries of his wives, becoming a symbol of the new African bourgeoisie, beholden to all things European, driving a Mercedes Benz car, hiring a chauffeur, drinking imported water, and perhaps most absurdly fellow Commerce members are required to discuss business exclusively in French, the tongue of the colonialist oppressor, living in a massive estate that is actually owned by his first wife Adja (Seune Samb).  As if to celebrate his newfound success, El Hadji decides to take an arranged third wife who at 19 is young enough to be his daughter (Dieynaba Niang), providing each of his wives with their own villa and a car, sparing no expense at the wedding, which is a lavish spectacle, suggesting a man is what others see, that he is an extension of his material possessions.  This decision causes considerable trepidation among the other two wives who believe they will be neglected, with Adja, always dignified, an exemplary Moslem wife, wearing colorful flowing traditional African clothing, and 2nd wife Oumi (Younouss Seye) a volcano of emotion who considers herself emancipated in a wig, sunglasses, and low-cut attire, more representative of the modern European style, both seen awkwardly sharing a Coke together before lecturing El Hadji, asserting their authority even as he is about to be married.  Perhaps even more angered is his college-educated daughter Rama (Miriam Niang), a child of privilege who religiously avoids the company of oppressed people, yet also a modern feminist finding the practice of multiple wives despicable, believing all polygamous men are hypocritical liars that can’t be trusted, showing concern for her mother Adja’s happiness, even suggesting divorce, but her mother counters that at her age it would be slim pickings to find a better arrangement, that she’s better off exercising her seniority among the wives, with both keeping a low profile, allowing El Hadji his day in the sun. 

Alternating between Wolof spoken on the street and French spoken to conduct business and governmental affairs, the film continually contrasts between the former colonizing state and a liberated Africa, seemingly confused about the mixed messages, with El Hadji filling the void with nefarious practices that existed prior to independence, suggesting there’s no real liberation so long as officials remain corrupt.  By imitating former colonialist practices, Sembène lambastes the new African bourgeoisie as morally vacuous caricatures who remain lazy and cowardly, certainly worthy of contempt, exactly as expressed by Rama, who refuses a cup of Evian Water, her father’s favorite beverage, reflecting a healthier and more educated postcolonial attitude.  However, on the wedding night of his third marriage, with a young bride beautiful enough to “wake up the dead,” El Hadji is unable to perform sexually, afflicted by xala (impotency).  The bride’s mother is incensed, believing he must take care of this affliction immediately, which sends him reeling into traditional methods of witch craft, which El Hadji doesn’t really believe in, but he’s desperate, willing to pay any price.  He’s a pathetic figure that slinks into work the next morning, with his food import business already opened by his secretary, Fatim Diagne, who fumigates the place, even perfumes the sewer water discarded by women on the street, which otherwise reeks a foul odor, while El Hadji is unhappy with the collection of musicians, cripples, and beggars sitting outside his door, describing them as “human rubbish,” calling the police to have them picked up immediately in order to protect his business.  As if to accentuate the illicit street activity, an accident draws a crowd, where a pickpocket easily takes advantage, robbing a farmer of his annual savings, sent to town to replenish his village’s needed provisions, now left with nothing, while the pickpocket is seen buying a fancy tailor-fitted suit.  Once the riff-raff are removed outside his business, El Hadji tends to more important troubles, visiting a highly recommended witch doctor to remove the curse of the xala, who inquires about who may have inflicted the curse, one of his wives, a jealous colleague, suggesting the appropriate remedy may be linked.  But the xala continues afterwards, with El Hadji preoccupied by nothing else, neglecting his business, allowing debts to grow, spending weeks moving from healer to soothsayer, spending gobs of money, driven even deeper into the outskirts of a faraway village in search of a revered spiritual marabout, offering a check as payment, a piece of paper that has little meaning or use in the bush country, requiring a lengthy trip into the city in search of a bank.  While xala is initially viewed as sexual impotence, an inability to satisfy his three wives, it also represents the failure of self-serving men to satisfy the needs of their country.  Sembène’s exaggerated portrait transforms the meaning to represent the inability of newly independent African nations to resolve their own conflicts, requiring continuing reliance on colonial powers that don’t have their country’s best interests in mind, becoming a musical chairs game of changing black figureheads, none of whom possess the capabilities needed to run a country.  Sembène’s metaphor continually expands, painting a damaging picture of the effects of white marabouts, who take the forms of advisors offering technical assistance, offering aid packages in massive European loans designed to solve problems of development that in reality create larger problems of psychological and economic dependency, as the massive debt incurred is often impossible to repay, especially after years of drought, leaving African nations as desperate as El Hadji to remove the colonialist curse. 

By the time El Hadji is finally cured, he’s deeper in debt than he imagines, summoned to appear before his fellow members of the Chamber of Commerce, who have all suffered from the bad checks El Hadji has been passing, their creditors refusing their requests, their reputations in shambles, all pointing their fingers at El Hadji’s open display of embezzlement, voting to remove him from their chambers, where El Hadji’s eloquent speech suggests they’re all just middlemen for white capitalists, yet painting them all under the same broad brush of self-serving greed and dishonesty fails to sway their votes, unanimously expelling him so their corrupt and exploitive practices can continue unabated.  The new arrival taking his place is none other than the pickpocket thief who stole the wad of money on the street, wearing his new suit along with a cowboy hat, receiving the symbolic briefcase that comes with the job.  Meanwhile, the police shut down El Hadji’s business and shutter it under lock and key, his Mercedes is repossessed (they have to push it as nobody knows how to drive it), and two of his wives leave him.  Ironically, a new xala has been placed upon him, as the marabout who removed the spell discovered the check bounced, so just as quickly he reinstates the curse.  But that is not all of El Hadji’s misfortunes, as there’s a final Buñuelian beggar’s banquet twist, as all the beggars and cripples find their way to his estate, representative of all the oppressed people in Africa, suddenly taking over his refrigerator, drinking all the cold drinks, where the most vociferously angry is a farmer whose land was stolen by El Hadji, then denied the monetary aid package for victims starving of drought, as many in his village died because of the actions of El Hadji, who basically extorted funds to pay for his wedding.  This farmer initiated the xala in the first place and can easily remove it again, but only if El Hadji exposes himself naked before the group, allowing them all to express their moral outrage by spitting on him, a complete reversal of power, as only this moral atonement will remove the curse.  Despite the abject humiliation, basically crawling on his knees for forgiveness, losing his manhood is more important to him, so he degrades himself with this exorcism.  With his remaining wife in tears, El Hadji submissively relents to their conditions, where the “human rubbish” are the ones now passing judgement over him.  Throughout the film there is a steady stream of native chants and African music, including poetic African lyrics that satirically mirror the situation El Hadji finds himself in, creating layers of allegorical content.  With Sembène an ardent communist, the film may as well be about the evils of capitalism, as for every El Hadji that succeeds, even temporarily, there are hundreds of beggars and less fortunate who don’t, who comprise the mainstream of African society, who are no better off in a post-colonial nation, with foreign nations continuing to rape and plunder African lands and resources, leaving an impoverished lower class all across the continent.  While the film is often considered one of Sembène’s finest, a huge box-office hit in Senegal, yet it can be uneven and awkwardly told, blisteringly angry one moment and unengaging the next, lacking a searing emotional intensity, at times bordering on the surreal, where it’s a heavy-handed morality tale, wildly over-the-top, feeling more like a farce, with El Hadji serving as comic relief, a dupe whose name is affiliated with a Hajj, having taken his first wife on a pilgrimage to the Islamic Holy Land of Mecca, yet he’s a religious hypocrite, polygamous without being devout, guilty of stupid moral transgressions, with his brethren mimicking the official gestures of state officials, where men overall are viewed as universally deplorable, with Sembène suggesting they need to be purged from power.  Only the women receive their due in this film, reduced to secondary characters, yet their blunt honesty shines in sharp contrast to the waters muddied by men.  The African leaders who mismanaged, abused and continue to abuse their power since the end of colonization have mostly been men, advocating a continuation of the status quo, as El Hadji does here, sharing the blame for disempowering African women whose contribution is unequivocally needed to build a stronger and more equitable Africa.

Black Girl (La Noir de...)

 

Director Ousmane Sembène

deleted color scene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 BLACK GIRL (La Noir de…)            A                                                                                         Senegal  France  (65 mi)  1966 d:  Ousmane Sembène

At a moral level, I don’t think we have any lesson to learn from Europe.                        —Ousmane Sembène, Village voice | Film | The Guardian 

Another film that reveals what it means to be black, and while primarily targeting black audiences, it’s also a useful primer for whites, offering an analysis of the underlying root of racism that is simplistically told from a black perspective, running into resistance from even educated whites who refuse to process or comprehend the cogent message contained within, as their lives are relatively undisturbed, remaining largely unaffected by what Sembène is trying to express, yet it’s a call of anguish, a cry for help, desperately trying to change the damaging colonialist relationships that prevail, which lay the foundation for racial oppression, where without fail one class is served while the other is the server, with no regard whatsoever for the consequences, so long as the white dominant class remains dominant.  To whites, that’s all that seems to matter, while blacks remain economically exploited and damaged psychologically, enduring emotional hardships that whites can’t even begin to understand.  Made nearly half a century ago, it is the first feature film made by a black African in sub-Saharan Africa to reach an international audience, certainly among the first to provide complex interiority in an African character, opening new doors, yet his potent message has fallen on deaf ears.  It’s a powerful film, difficult to endure, barely an hour long, yet it’s hard not to be shaken by the allegorical quality of the content, an experience shared by other young Africans who are part of the transitory migrant labor experience to Europe, looking elsewhere for a better life, suggesting freedom and dignity will never be achieved on terms set by the oppressor.  Adapting a 1962 short story he’d written entitled The Promised Land, Sembène offers a fictional framework of what Frantz Fanon was writing about in his 1967 historical critique Black Skin, White Masks, revelatory material exploring the dehumanizing effects of colonial domination, with Fanon merging medical case history with historical realities, where continually acting in a submissive and subordinate manner demeans one’s self-worth, eliminating any idea of aspiring to something greater, leaving one instead helplessly demoralized.  Part of what’s so striking about this film is the casual air of indifference associated with the white middle class, where the lighthearted musical leitmotif playing when whites are onscreen sounds more like Nino Rota in Fellini’s LA DOLCE VITA (THE GOOD LIFE) (1960), while an unmistakable African soundtrack of thumb pianos and koras are a constant reminder of the life left behind.  Following the life of Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), an illiterate young girl from Dakar, Senegal, her life is uprooted when she obtains a job as a governess with a white French family living in Dakar, basically looking after their children.  But when the family moves back to Antibes in France, bringing her with them, the relationship changes drastically, as she’s ordered around, abusively yelled at constantly, with cooking and cleaning duties added to her job duties, basically becoming the household maid, feeling duped and demeaned, without ever discussing any of this with her.  Using bold black and white color contrasts, her life is solitary and routine, never given any time off, where she’s continually at the beck and call of the family, who regularly and rudely put her in her place, constantly reminded of her lowly status, where she internalizes the negativity, manifesting signs of abuse.  The euphoria she displayed when she got the job disappears, replaced by a sullen attitude of passive hostility, where she doesn’t want to be there, as they never allow her out of the house, so she has no life of her own.   Making things worse, they don’t even pay her, so she has no economic alternatives, stuck like a prisoner across the continents in someone else’s home.  Her dilemma is given an existential voice, speaking her innermost thoughts in voiceover, and while this is her story, her thoughts are curiously spoken by another Haitian actress in French, Toto Bissainthe, who plays the grandmother in Raoul Peck’s 1993 Haitian powerhouse The Man On the Shore (L’Homme sur les quais), with French being a language Diouana does not understand, basically telegraphing the degree of her disconnect, allowing viewers to acknowledge the emotional upheaval she’s going through, even as her host family ignores it completely.  

An early 70-minute version included a brief color sequence on her arrival to France, but was altered and rewritten in French in order to get the film financed, as the African script was initially rejected by the Film Bureau of Senegal, instead meeting the short film requirements in order to bypass the Bureau’s ruling.  Of interest, Sembène has a small role in the film as a Dakar school instructor who’s also in the business of writing letters to family members abroad for those who can’t read and write.  Sembène worked as a mason, carpenter, mechanic, dockworker, union organizer, and had also served as a sharp-shooter in the French colonial army during the Second World War before becoming a socially committed writer, a provocative politically-oriented griot filmmaker, social activist and critic, frequently described as the “father of African cinema,” yet this film in particular is among the most studied films by scholars, even taught in schools around the world, as it typifies not only colonial exploitation, but common elements of unhindered racism that prevail with whites in complete denial about what role they play in the perpetuation of human suffering.  Primarily intended for African audiences, the film is a tool for progress that demands self-examination, while bringing new awareness to others of Africa’s history and traditions, using a social realist film technique that feels like a documentary, resembling the New Wave cinéma vérité style, with the film offering a mirror of history.  Along with music, an African mask follows Diouana throughout her ordeal, initially given to her by a young boy who could be her younger brother in Dakar, promising to pay him with her first wages, then offered as a gift to her host white family, who hang it on the wall, adding it to their art collection, where it stands alone, watching over her, like an unseen conscience, or a godly African spirit, an image of Négritude, reminding her of her African roots.  Before the film is over, however, the mask is returned to that same boy on the street in Dakar, who dons the mask, becoming an avenging force, threatening Monsieur (Robert Fontaine), the white man who returned it, acting increasingly nervous, suddenly feeling out of place, rapidly escaping to the safety of his car and driving away.  Yet when the boy removes the mask at the end, he’s just a boy, vulnerable and fragile, and alone, which is the haunting final shot as the credits roll, with suggestions that his future is an open question.  That mask shadows her life, giving it meaning, even as she loses all connection.  Growing more and more disillusioned and discouraged as the film progresses, Diouana falls into a lethargic depression, finding it hard to get out of bed, as she’s lost any sense of her own humanity, treated more like a pet animal balancing a ball on its nose, where she’s supposed to bemuse and entertain her host family, who never show any concern about her changing mood, as all they care about are the duties she’s expected to perform.  Their casual indifference is appalling, leaving her no one to talk to, no one to trust, literally no way out, as she grows to despise her host family, but never utters a word.  They don’t believe she can speak French anyway, but understands by instinct, “like an animal,” suggesting if you don’t speak French, you are less than human.  One white guest abruptly kisses Diouana without consent, claiming he never kissed a black woman before, never thinking he had to ask, believing it was his right to do what he wanted with her, viewing her as little more than a family pet to play with.  Diouana had dreams about travelling to France, loving the pictures in the fashion magazines, thinking she would explore the country and shop to her heart’s delight, but none of her initial hopes materialize, as instead she’s become co-opted and enslaved, turned into someone she loathes, afraid to even look at herself in the mirror, imprisoned by her circumstances, withering away into a dull void.  When she looks out her window into the night she sees a blackness, which appears like a black hole that has sucked all the life out of her.  It’s an extraordinary portrait of living separate lives, black and white, two entirely different worlds of understanding, yet whites see no problem in continually bossing around the black hired help, expecting them to work on command.  

Sembène builds dramatic tension through Diouana’s deteriorating mindset, which is expressed openly to the audience through voiceover revelations, while the host family remains clueless, and more to the point, they’re not really interested.  Their lives revolve around themselves, excluding even their own children most of the time, continually sending them outside to play just to get rid of them.  From Diouana’s point of view, all they do is gorge themselves on food while spending their lives drinking excessively, then expecting her to clean up the mess they’ve left behind.  What’s truly startling is the extravagance and wealth just outside their door, as this is the French Riviera of Nice and Cannes and Antibes, which she can get a glimpse of through her window, but she may as well be on planet Mars, as she’s totally excluded from French society while being exiled from her own African home and family, where her future only grows more dire. The extent to which she deteriorates reflects her open humiliation and all-consuming anger at how egregiously she’s mistreated, eventually refusing to work altogether, or endure any more commands, having reached her psychological limit, where “never again” becomes her final mantra, veering into the fractured reality of Polanski’s REPULSION (1965), playing out like a Greek tragedy, where passive resistance is her only means, remaining silent and withdrawn.  Her silence is particularly affecting, her emotions muted, offering a chilling testimony, yet it was that same silence that got her the job in the first place, as the other job applicants were overly aggressive, with her employer admiring her passivity.  That polite silence is a mask she wears while around her host family, as it covers up her real interior thoughts, showing them the face they want to see, docile and submissive.  Her withdrawn alienation is the key to the film, in stark contrast to the assertiveness of her white employer, who herself grows displeased with her own husband, finding her marriage in turmoil, only exacerbated by a servant work stoppage she fails to comprehend.  The starkness of the story is coupled by a series of flashbacks, where Diouana has a brief romance with a young student (Momar Nar Sene) in Dakar, who has a tapestry portrait of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba on the wall, lying in bed eying magazines together, dreaming of what life will be like in France, imagining all the opportunities she will have.  Much worse than simple cultural misunderstanding, it’s important to point out that Senegal gained their independence in 1960, a time when French expatriates still comprised 10% of Dakar’s population, 33% of the nation’s cabinet positions, and 66% of the university faculty, making it, in essence, a neo-colonialist state, where Diouana still feels obligated to look to France for post-colonial employment and a future, finding herself drowning and suffocating in that same colonialist mentality the nation extricated itself from.  Let’s not forget that Senegal was a former French colony that banned Africans from filming in their own country, one of the primary reasons Sembène became a filmmaker, viewing it as an act of liberation, and it was the French that historically gained control of the Atlantic slave trade, using the island of Gorée, a short distance from Dakar, to house, auction, and transport slaves across the ocean, the subject of another film RETURN TO GORÉE (2007), where Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour returned to the “Maison des esclaves” for a live musical performance that offers a sanctuary of hope.  Known only as Madame (Anne-Marie Jelinek), her selection process in viewing prospective job applicants resembles a new black slave trade, with black aspiring applicants all waiting on a street corner for potential white employers to select one of them, eying them up from behind her dark glasses, checking them out, choosing a path of least resistance, finding the one that conforms to her predetermined point of view.  That racial assessment is at the heart of the film, as Madame believes she owns Diouana, viewing her as little more than a piece of purchased property, free to do with as she pleases.  That’s the arrangement, built on commerce, but fueled by a history of racist superiority that allows whites to casually dismiss any element of humanity associated with a worker for hire.  As far as Madame is concerned, she unambiguously has sole and exclusive rights, blind to any interior story of exile and despair.