Moolaade

Ousmane Sembene, who died earlier this year, left behind a body of work that explored many of post-colonial Africa’s troubles and triumphs. His last film, Moolaade, touches upon two of his most prevalent themes, the power of women and the heroics possible in everyday life. Moolaade opens with scenes of an average day in a small African village. Suddenly, four young girls quickly dart through the bustle. They are fleeing from “purification,” a ritual otherwise known as female circumcision. The girls head to a compound where a woman named Colle lives with her other husband’s wives and their children. They know she refused to have her own daughter Amasatou undergo the ritual and hope she will be sympathetic to their plight. Colle, whose own “purification” caused her horrendous complications, immediately ties a bright orange and black rope around the entrance to the compound, thus granting them moolaade, or sanctuary, that according to tradition can not be broken unless Colle herself ends it. What the men dismiss as a mere “domestic issue” grows into a village wide standoff. Colle’s defiance of their command to end the sanctuary and submit both the children and her daughter to the ritual shakes the foundation of tradition, hierarchy, marriage and taboos with both tragic and empowering results. Sembene brings the village to life by filling the corners of the film with sounds like the bleating of goats, the rustling of trees and the cries of children playing, and bright colors on everything. But it is Colle’s steadfast, unapologetic determination to keep the children safe that is the most vibrant element in Moolaade. The film is not only an emphatic call to end a barbaric practice, but also a rousing celebration of the power in ordinary people taking extraordinary action.