Moolaadé, written and directed by Ousmane Sembène. Les Films Terre Africaine/Ciné-Sud Promotion, 2004. Made in Senegal: Bamabara and French dialogue; subtitled in English. 120 mins.
Ousmane Sembène's film, set in rural Senegal and featuring an amazing cast of local actors, explores how a male-dominated Muslim community comes to terms with questions of religion, culture and tradition. It tells the story of a Muslim woman, housewife and mother, Cole Ardo, as she confronts the forced practice of female circumcision (FC) supported by the ‘cult’ of mainly male village elders and submissive women allies. By refusing the circumcision of her own daughter, Binatou, years earlier, Cole became in the eyes of the village establishment a stubborn and erring housewife. However she became a local hero in the eyes of educated locals, young girls enlisted to be circumcised that season and their parents.
The film shows the influence of radio in advocating the ills of FC, enlightening the community and uniting those opposed to it, and demonstrates the stakes and stakeholders in the practice of female circumcision. On the one hand are those who cherish and support FC: village elders (mainly men) and ‘incisors’ (women whose trade is to circumcise girls). On the other hand, are those who oppose FC: Cole Ardo (the local housewife) and her ‘silent supporters’ – her fellow housewife (Adjatou), sympathetic middle-aged women and, to a lesser extent, her husband who kept mute at the time when Cole opposed the circumcision of their daughter.
Cole becomes a sudden threat when she gives asylum to young girls who run to her house seeking shelter from a gang of incisors who are out to catch all eligible girls for forced circumcision. When, after a village-wide search, Cole is asked to produce the children, she invokes the hallowed tradition of Moolaadé – named after an evil spirit rooted in an evil king of the land who reigned in the past. This occult practice involves a superstitious blockade imposed on the doorstep of a house which casts spells on anyone passing through. Thus the entire village except members of Cole's compound will incur the wrath of the Moolaadé if they disobey the blockade. As the one who invoked the Moolaadé, only Cole (a woman) can disable the blockade and its wrath through a counter-ritual.
In an emergency meeting of the village Council of Elders prompted by the incisors, Cole is told to perform the ritual to disable the Moolaadé, an instruction she refuses to obey. Cole's husband returns from a trip to the city to find a bitter commotion engulfing the whole village. Cole's husband is confronted by his senior brother, one of the village elders and a member of the Elders-in-Council, who insist that he call his wife to order.
The husband invites his two wives, Cole and Adjatou, to a closed-door family meeting. He rants with absolute authority, cursing Cole for provoking the wrath of the village, and telling her to immediately perform the ritual to lift the blockade. In a mild gesture of refusal Coles asks permission to explain her position, but her request is denied. Early the following morning Cole's brother-in-law arrives at the compound to invite Cole and her husband to meet the Elders-in-Council. Secretly, he hands a hide-stroke to his younger brother instructing him, as allowed by his power of seniority, to ‘smack the hell out of Cole, if she refuses to obey your command before the Council’. When, in the village square, Cole refuses once again to heed to the demands of the Elders and the instructions of her husband, the husband lashes Cole under the gaze of the entire village. This violent act continues until the husband can no longer raise his hands and Cole is nearly unconscious.
Cole's public punishment divides the village: those in support of the status quo, the village elders and incisors, shout ‘keep beating her until she revokes the Moolaadé!’; those in support of change, especially young women, encourage Cole to ‘keep up the resistance and endure the pain of change!’ However, it is those in support of the status quo who seem to carry the day. As elders and wealthy members of society, they have the resources and influence to dominate public opinion and foist their interest and perceptions on society.
An important event is the wanton confiscation and burning, by the elders, of every radio in the village. The village establishment saw that radios served as an instrument of public enlightenment, community action and anti-establishment organising. The so-called ‘talking technology’ is accused of being the medium through which the heretic Cole was ‘brainwashed’ and indoctrinated into refusing the circumcision of Binatou. It is perceived to carry the risk of misleading other members of society into rejecting age-old traditions.
In the thick of such communal rancour, the village anticipates the return from France of the son of an influential family in the neighbourhood. He arrives with a lorry-full of exotic western souvenirs – TV sets, wrappers, shirts, shoes – to be given to friends and neighbours. He receives a heroic village-wide ceremony; the local jester praises him: ‘a true son of the village has indeed returned from grace; you have conducted your France adventure in style.’ With his Western education and exposure, he soon develops interest in Binatou – the uncircumcised daughter of a stubborn woman! His father forbids him from having anything to do with a girl who is ‘unfit for marriage’, threatening to disown him if he disobeys. The boy leaves the village in anger and frustration. Sembène leaves his audience in suspense; we are not shown what happens to the boy.
In Moolaadé, one sees an astounding dramatisation of everyday life in rural Africa. Consider the following: (1) the role of religion and tradition in supporting and reproducing harmful health practices; (2) the role of elders, including women elders, in supporting the status quo (female circumcision); (3) the role of local artisans – in this case local incisors – whose livelihood depends on the sustenance of harmful traditions and who work hard to win the support of local elders; (4) the influence of Western technology and media (especially radio) in challenging local customs and enlightening peoples' perceptions and practices: such technologies usually get better reception from younger generations and the underclass; and (5) the influence of foreign cultures especially education, as demonstrated by the liberal approach of the French-educated ‘son of soil’ who, on return from his studies offers to marry the only uncircumcised girl in the village.
Sembène died in 2007, but this film will surely immortalise him with its awesome depiction of life in rural Africa and how local people are coming to terms with harmful traditional practices, as well as the power politics that undergird them.