Chez Jolie Coiffure

Director Rosine Mbakam (left) alongside Sabine

CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE         B               

Belgium  (70 mi)  2018  d: Rosine Mbakam

Cameroon and Belgium are fused together in this film about a charismatic hairdresser named Sabine, an undocumented émigré from Cameroon who runs a hair salon in a shopping mall in Matongé, the African quarters in Brussels, where her effervescent personality drives this picture, as she is blatantly honest, gets into everyone’s business, flirts prodigiously, hands out essential support information to other African émigré’s, where her shop is an epicenter of social services, which includes a myriad of expansive hair styling (Africaine, Europèanne, Americaine), which she effortlessly performs while carrying on a running conversation with the camera which is planted directly in the center of her shop, Jolie Coiffure Salon, often referring to the director by her first name Rosine.  While the size of the shop is tiny, the dazzling array of angles used is expanded exponentially by the use of mirrors, where it’s hard to tell if you’re seeing the actual shot or the reflection in the mirror.  Sabine is a larger-than-life character in every respect, unabashedly unafraid to throw her curves around, wearing skirts and blouses so tight that it’s a wonder she can actually fit it all underneath, as her full-figured body is hard to contain.  She is such a healthy presence onscreen that viewers will take to her instantly, while Rosine helps with the braiding or around the shop, with other hairdressers recruited when many hands are needed, all working simultaneously with a patient customer enduring it all, which includes eating while she’s working on someone’s hair.  Apparently addicted to eating gizzards, she constantly flirts with a man who sells them, earning a daily smile and an assault of criticisms when he arrives emptyhanded, teasing him relentlessly, but over time we come to realize she’s friends with his wife, who runs off temporarily during the middle of the picture, which leaves him heartbroken, where she’s seen consoling him, offering advice, and just being a good friend in a time of need.  There is literally nothing this woman can’t do, as she is constantly the focus of attention throughout the film, where it would be hard to find a more generous subject. 

Over time we learn her story, which began with a recruitment agency in Cameroon for a housekeeper in Lebanon, which was her most dreadful experience as they keep your passport so you can’t leave, feeling imprisoned, treated like a slave, eventually escaping to Syria, then Greece, traveling mostly by foot before finally arriving in Belgium, where her request for asylum has repeatedly been denied, making her subject to the frequent immigration raids in her neighborhood, quickly shutting off the lights and disappearing, basically hiding from the authorities.  Rosine allows her camera to continue to run in the darkness, as shouts of commotion can be heard offscreen as arrests are made, suggestive of what could be happening.  The police routinely patrol with dogs, randomly rounding up undocumented immigrants who are either imprisoned or exported across the border.  The pervasive feeling of fear followed by relief is shared among the many who face similar circumstances, who are seen commiserating in Sabine’s shop afterwards, which becomes a safe space, each sharing their own story of woe, yet fortunate they evaded the trap this time.  Sabine also spends her time organizing a network to support fellow Cameroon émigrés by raising money, recruiting new members, informing them of their rights, and helping people who need work and a place to stay, particularly mothers with children, even welcoming people into her home, which may simply be the loft above the shop, often teaching these young girls the art of braiding or weaving hair, adding hair extensions, or various degrees of colorization, routinely seen giving work to other girls who just arrived.  Yet there is also down time when there are no customers, with Sabine staring silently out the window lost in her own thoughts, occasionally looking down in the dumps, but in no time she’s back to her bubbly disposition.

Despite repeated warnings to avoid Lebanon, African émigré’s continue to come, even members of Sabine’s family, desperate to try something new, as their economic opportunities are so bleak.  Sadly she receives a phone call from her younger brother needing immediate cash, finding himself in dire straits.  While she’s always willing to lend a helping hand, there’s only so much one can do, as she needs to stay current on her own rent.  One of the amusing sidelines is the attention she receives from the gazes of white tourists walking by who literally stop and stare, literally gawking, making them feel like zoo animals on display, as if they have never seen a black person before, particularly one who flaunts her body, wears a blond wig, and plays Afro-pop music all day long, seen singing along at one point when the lyrics reference the power of God.  Sabine has no patience for these groups of tourists, instructing them to move along, as this is literally her home, a tenuous one at that, so easily taken away, where her job is to make the best of the situation, feeling like she’s happier here, as she’s working while also regularly providing a service to others, not really wanting to return back home where opportunities are so few.  The personal is interwoven with the political, where the film becomes a collection of shared stories, many of them harrowing, with the camera never leaving the shop, placing viewers in a similar situation of feeling trapped, never allowed to leave the premises, where the world outside is a potential danger zone that exhibits very little sympathy or understanding for people in Sabine’s situation, feeling instead the wrath of a xenophobic rage.   With this film, released alongside Mbakam’s THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILÉKÉ WOMAN (2016), it’s an interesting exploration of African women both at home and abroad, where they’re never really welcomed or accepted on either continent, where their only protection is to form a community of like-minded women to support one another, with the film enlarging their small community networks to an international stage, bringing to light the continuing strife and oppression that exists in a post-colonial world.

The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman (Les deux visages d'une femme Bamiléké)

Director Rosine Mbakam

The director shooting on the street

The director (left) sharing a moment with her mother

THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILÉKÉ WOMAN (Les deux visages d'une femme Bamiléké)                  B                       

Cameroon  (76 mi)  2016  d: Rosine Mbakam                Official site [United States]

An autobiographical portrait of African identity and female empowerment, offering an outsider’s perspective, though the filmmaker was born and spent her childhood years as a Bamiléké woman in Cameroon, but left to study abroad in Belgium, marrying a European man and having a child, returning ten years later to more closely examine the community she left behind, largely built around her mother and aunts, using a cinéma vérité style to document her mother’s daily life, while introducing her young son Malick to his grandmother.  With the filmmaker behind the camera, the construct is largely an ongoing dialogue between a mother and daughter, with the daughter continually asking probing questions that can be heard as she follows her mother around in her regular routines, offering a glimpse into African culture from their own perspective.  While the film is nonfiction, it resembles Abderrahmane Sissako’s WAITING FOR HAPPINESS (2002), set in Mauritania, a port city in Africa located on the sea, where large ships are constantly seen moving in and out, mirroring the population flow, as a former resident who has been living in Europe returns back home to his family, but is barely recognized, mocked for losing the African dialect.  Alienated from the world at home where he is not embraced, he is equally out of place in Europe, leaving him alone in a no man’s land, not really fitting in anywhere.  While the circumstances are similar the outcome is far different due to a more personalized relationship between a mother and daughter, constantly eliciting more information, filling in the missing pieces, providing a universal narrative, so what would otherwise be unfamiliar territory becomes readily accessible, even to viewers.  It’s a shockingly personal way to blend family experiences into a collective African history, providing a necessary yet understandable backdrop in one’s search for African identity. 

Opening in the darkness as the camera moves along a lone highway at night, the filmmaker offers her own poetic narration, bringing to light the hidden history of her family and the surrounding community, having survived a long, protracted struggle to gain independence from the French colonialists, also known as the Bamileke War, having endured French atrocities when young men were stolen right out from underneath their families by French soldiers for forced labor and women were kidnapped, only to be sold on the streets for arranged marriages.  While these are stark revelations, they’re just part of her mother’s story, who grew up in the bush and remembers hiding in the forest to avoid the French, having endured an arranged marriage at age 18 with a man who took three wives, getting along reasonably with the second wife, but the third disrupted all family harmony, showing little interest in the others, thinking only of herself.  Revealing the cramped quarters of this now abandoned home for the camera, she reveals she kept sleeping on the tiny bed even after her husband died, though she eventually moved into the larger, more comfortable bed.  One by one she proudly reveals the colorful array of mourning clothes she wore for each family funeral, as so many were lost while she was gone.  Showing his grandfather’s gravesite to Malick, the absent family reconnects with what they missed, examining the contents of her father’s suitcase, including his official documents and papers, which her mother could not read as she is illiterate, so the filmmaker herself identified each one.  In explaining her remarriage, in order to stop unwanted male pursuers and any further sexual relationships, she married her co-wife’s son to avoid having to live under the thumb of another man, confessing she didn’t want another man in her life.  Sitting around peeling plantain, her mother and aunts speak openly about their marriages to husbands chosen for them by their father, a continuing practice that disregards the interests of women by stifling their voice.

Taking her spot in the local market where she sells fish, obtaining a booth requires persistence and regular rental payments, as each stall is considered valuable, an economic lifeline offering opportunities.  What the director remembers from her childhood experiences was the value of the newspapers her mother used to wrap the fish, where reading stories took her to other parts of the world, allowing her to escape from the routine.  While sitting in the market glancing at the newspaper, her mother recognizes a picture of the sitting president, expressing little interest in politics, or even voting, as there have only been two Presidents since independence in 1960, with the current man in power since 1982, so there are few, if any, options, providing a certain stability, but a lack of new ideas, feeling totally ineffectual.  On the other hand, what is arguably the most interesting aspect of the film is attending a tontine meeting, a gathering of women with mutual interests, who have figured out that it’s better to pool their resources than to handle expenses individually, seen taking up a collection for specific needs, so everyone has access to food, schooling, and the regular payment of essential bills.  Originally meeting in their home when she was a child, they’ve raised enough money for a separate space, and as all the women are lined up together the filmmaker reads the Maya Angelou poem Woman Work, adding a contemplative tone to the proceedings, where the director personally thanks them for their sacrifice, their resilience and sense of purpose, as without their collective efforts, she would never have been able to attend school abroad.  This film is kind of a thank you for the group’s efforts, showing how they can overcome financial obstacles and achieve greater goals, leading the director to a more liberating future as a filmmaker, providing the necessary tools to tell the truth about their existing reality as she attempts to decolonize Africa from its stereotypical place in cinema.  Since her mother had only seen one film in her life, something viewed as a young girl, she takes her to see Senegalese director Ousmane Sembène’s landmark film BLACK GIRL (1966), revealing the toxic effects of colonialization (which she remembers all too well), with the rich rudely putting their servants in place, constantly reminding them of their lowly status, dashing any hopes for dreams, something this film hopes to remedy, providing an introspective yet honest portrait of the Bamiléké people, providing a sense of solidarity and purpose.