Topical summery of the movie Moolaade - Essay Example

Since he was an artistic filmmaker, in his film he realized that his dream of unifying Africa was essential and it was what the political leaders had still not produced (Rapfogel & Porton, 2004, pp. 201). The film focuses on the injustice of female genital circumcision (FGC). The film shows six girls that have ran away from a purification ceremony from which four seek refuge with Colle Ardo Gallo Sy because they do not want to be circumcised and Colle had not allower her daughter to be circumcised in the past.

The other two of the girls have been thought to have run away to the city. This is about the modern day village of Africa where the genital mutilation of females is rather a culture and tradition that has been coming along since many years. Colle is the hope of the girls as she refused her daughter to be drawn through the painful procedure and she creates a moolaade which is a protection place. She makes the place by putting some yarn across the compound entrance where she and her husband lives; along with his other two wives.

Her hostility brings out the tension which comes out episodically to maintain the social stability. Moolaade is the French name given to the study of the social relations in the African village. According to the people of the village, she has something going on in the ancient spell which is the Moolaade. No one could harm those four girls until they were under the protection of Colle, and those who tried would suffer bad things. The spell could be broken by Colle only by saying the words that are right.

However, while Colle was working on these developments, the women who were responsible for the mutilations saw her as a threat. On the other hand, the film shows that the other people from the tribe are rather worried about the changes that would affect their village life. There were many anthropological insights which suggested important facts such as man’s higher authority over women, older brothers have dominance over the younger ones and the first wife has higher authority over the second wife etc.

These traditional factors are eroding away due to the influences. The older people of the tribe are campaigning against these influences and so they take away the radios from women to stop them from accessing to modernized ideas coming from the outside world. The women are angry and one of them says “they want to lock up our minds”. The men have tried hard but it seemed that they could not completely take away the outside influences. Many modern ideas came to the village through people like traveling salesmen.

The salesman brought many modern items in the village like candies, batteries, food and sneakers. The prices of these are high and he is a womanizer as considered by many. Amasatou informs him about her marriage to the heir of the tribal throne, when she goes to pick things for her mother, who is in Paris currently but is going to be back to the village. She and her grandmother carried out a spending spree charging the costs to the heir of the throne that she is about to wed. Sembene has been known as the father of the African cinema and this movie was directed by him at the age of 81.

At this age Sembene had all the experience and power to engage in a heroic masterpiece that he produced. He had a clear storytelling style which was presented in this film as well. The character of Colle was a heroic character which sent waves to the whole community about a never seen change. She is a strong