No Oscar for Ousmane?: No Hope for Solidarity?

This year at Cannes, people from all over the world were frothing at the mouth over Moolaade. Directed by Sengal’s eighty-one-year-old Ousmane Sembene, arguably Africa’s greatest auteur, it was nevertheless...neglected, inexplicably excluded from the Main Competition lineup. I smelled politics at the exclusive yacht parties on the Mediterranean.

The rousing political film spotlights a power struggle between men/elders and women when several girls refuse the traditional female circumcision procedure. Moving through social comedy as it weaves its heartbreaking magic, the movie assumes additional social relevance, creating a work much deeper and more complex than the topical subject matter would initially have you believe.

The spirit of the Festival de Cannes is one of friendship and universal cooperation. Its aim is to reveal and focus attention on works of quality in order to contribute to the progress of the motion picture arts and encourage the development of the film industry throughout the world. But two people who have been connected with Cannes since 1946 told me that the octogenaraian Arfrican was purposely overlooked, victim of an orchestrated ousting.

Oscar nominee Sideways features two passive-aggressive men, and the main female characters have a raison d’etre that makes sense only in relation to the opposite sex. They exist only to irritate or soothe their male counterparts. From a feminist perspective, there are also severe problems attached to nominees Being Julia, Ray and Million Dollar Baby. In this light, Maria Full of Grace shines a bit. Aviator is not worth mentioning.

If you’re looking for profoundly feminist fare, you’ll find it in both Ousmane Sembene’s Moolaade and Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake. The former is a "life-affirming call to resist and organize against patriarchal oppression within a traditional village society." [1] On several counts there, then, it’s heads, shoulders and hats above the likes of the other offerings cited here. Respecting the latter, the rapid rollback of abortion rights and the accelerating dimunition of political protection for women today resonate somehow. The question of how far we’ve advanced, if at all, is raised to the rafters. Without the filmmaker even trying to do so. A perfect combo, that. [2]

Just imagine: An exhilarating night at the movies with organic/vegan popcorn and a clear focus on female genital mutilation in an unspecified African nation (Burkina Faso). A tough act to follow, oui? Ditto for dealing with dead fetuses in the British Isles, yes?

Seriously though, the Senegalese’s cinematic contribution goes way beyond allegory (the label too many are attaching to the masterpiece); abominations are in full bloom for one and all to see, but there’s a kind of "how-to" quality attached to the tale of a courageous, ingenious woman defending her daughters against spouse and village conservatives.

And there’s a visual aspect that’s noteworthy here. To wit, the potential downer that’s the circumcising doyennes does not dominate. Not by any stretch or standards.

Not only is there time to taste the Sembenese color scheme, the vibrant spectrum which pours from the screen...but the dissolution of the communal ethos in Africa hovers throughout, resisting gravity. There is a singular beauty amidst the encouragement to speak up for social change. Deep aesthetic satisfaction alongside difficult dramatic conventions. Quite a trick.

In a Jared Rapfogel/Richard Porton interview with the African director [3] we find a highly instructive set of comments:

"I thought I could approach this subject in a different way. And, of course, I primarily had an African public in mind.... I didn’t want to put the practice of excision center stage, but instead wanted to put men and women, and their responses...in the foreground. I wanted to highlight the contradictions entailed by two values: the moolaade, which is the right to asylum and protection and society’s demand that the girls submit to excision. Those are two conflicting values. I wanted to emphasize that the men justify excision by referring to Islamic tradition, which provides dramatic structure for the film. This leads to discussion in open forums when I screen the film for African audiences. Hundreds of people attend these evening screenings. Sometimes we have disagreements, and we often then screen the film again the next evening and continue the discussions."

This brings me to a highly significant point respecting the left in America. To wit, our approach —with our true lack of community, time (and place) is money syndrome, etc.— is to show a film one time...drawing however many we can to the event, hopefully making time for obligatory talk following a given screening. But what do we have with the Africans (as Sembene delineates his experiences)? In short, there is a true sense of passionate concern about the issues, and the proof in the pudding is that they make it possible...even with the ongoing dimunition of their communities’ importance...to have more than one screening, and to take part in an ongoing dialogue. One gets the sense that the talk will stop...whenever, and not by a Dominating Clock.

There is a sense of continuity that I get with Sembene’s description. And lack of follow-through among the left on these shores is commonplace. Promises made are not kept. Burnout Syndrome is rampant. Etc. There seems to be a pervasive kind of Alzheimers going around, keeping activists from remaining on a given track...except intermittently.

Creeping cynicism has also contributed to this condition, but it’s not moving like molasses any longer. Optimism is optional. And suffering is tolerated...only so much. The particular kind of discomfort experienced when difficult dialogue takes place is usually avoided. And there is a strange sense of self superimposed on all...that convinces people they can get away from it all, and/or that they can look after #1, as the saying goes, and get away with it.

None of this helps for ongoing cohesion.

Whereas the left helps itself, in an odd way, to keep its collective head in the sand by underestimating its opposition, Sembene Land’s point of departure is clear as a bell. He knows the difficulty of defeating the forces he faces, but the thrust of everything he does reassures us that suffering is not in vain. He whips up indignation designed to lead to action.

He acknowledges the overwhelming odds he must overcome (much greater than ours, I might add), but radicalizing others is a raison d’etre that he insists must be honored. There is no time in his world for the gradualism that infects American activism. Ousmane’s work is infused with a sense of urgency...and hope.

Obama would develop facial tics in his presence.

Ousmane’s hope comes from having no expectations respecting justice or happiness. It comes from a love of community trumped by a faith in individual sacrifice. Yet Moolaade is distinctive in world cinema, with its emphasis on the community rather than on protagonists. Nothing can be solved in this great political filmmaker’s realm without consideration of a communal approach to problem-solving. Eventually, elimination of excision must be embraced by The Group...or there will be no advancing. One cannot get away, except temporarily...or on a case by case basis. And with the importance of the community being paramount that’s no answer for anyone.

We may have no community to speak of, but we are obliged to work toward having one, to reclaiming our healthy connections.

Ousmane Sembene has vision and a deep understanding of his society. Recently, when the media turned the Ward Churchill flap into a Free Speech issue, our society turned its head away from the attempt to put our complicity (in abominations) on the table for discussion. If the Man from Sengal was part of our society, he’d be at the forefront of the movement to discuss the so-called Conspiracy Theory of 9/11, going far beyond the question of cummupence.

That’s because he questions all traditions with new eyes. And he would see that our Myth of Our Goodness...the Great Con...the Great Scam perpetrated forever on the body politic is what really has to be addressed. For it is the equivalent of tradition in our very young society (sans a sense of community), this public participation in self-delusion. [4] Tantamount to excision. The Powers have us by the genitalia and they scar us for life at an early age. The disfigurement causes damage that only a handful see and try to do something about. And they do it at great risk, in part, because we live in a world without moolaade. There is no space for asylum in the Age of Super Surveillance.

And no one to run to.

It’s very sad, but if we give up on the notion of solidarity/community being possible, all we may have left is the opportunity to get away...to drop into a movie theatre...and see a film, a very foreign film.

But not a flick from Africa. [5]