Moolaadé

I went to the second film in the U of I’s international film series last night, the film that I was most looking forward to because it was directed by a Senegalese, Ousmane Sembène. Apparently, he has done other movies, but I have yet to see any. And he’s well known for his book: God’s Bits of Wood, which I read before leaving for Senegal.

The movie was in Diola (Jola), not a language I learned, but moolaadé is the word for protection. Centered around the theme of traditional “purification,” or female genital mutilation, it is a triumphant story of one woman’s struggle in a small Senegalese village. (It almost looked like the set could have been in Mali, though, because of the design of the village mosque and the granaries in the compound.) Although there were parts that seemed exaggerated for the sake of the movie, there was so much that was accurate to daily life in Senegal, probably both intentional and unintentional such as the doves and rooster calls throughout the day in the background or the random goats trying to mate in the compound’s entrance.

I left the theater with a headache, the type I get after crying too much. I was crying even before it reached the emotional parts, just because of the overwhelming Senegalese quality and spirit that I missed. The little touches like men wearing jelly shoes, women tying money in their pagnes, a villager returned from France who dabs at the constant sweat on his forehead with a tissue, the greetings, and the manner of speaking were entirely accurate. It was odd to see this culture portrayed in a film while I was sitting in a theater full of Americans, this culture I had spent two years learning and sometimes hating but finally understood, so poignantly displayed in cinema. For the first time since I’ve been back, I felt truly homesick for Senegal. I even dreamed about going back to visit last night.

Regardless of my bias toward anything Senegalese, I would put this movie on your list of films to rent. (Is it even out on DVD? It came out in 2004, but I had never heard anything about it previously.) And I would be very curious to know whether it has been circulated in Senegal and what their reactions have been.

Besides that I also went to see a performance of The Vagina Monologues on campus this weekend. It’s been three years since I saw it last, long enough to forget how hilarious it is at parts. I left that theater with sore cheeks.