Essential World Cinema: 5 Best Senegalese Films

Senegalese films

African cinema is a broad, fascinating entity. As national regimes change and ideologies shift, new film movements can flair up and vanish again in a matter of a few years. For being such a small nation with an unfortunate history of extreme poverty, Senegal has a rich cinematic history. Starting from the initial declaration of independence in 1959, a number of prominent film-makers began to emerge, favouring harsh, challenging films that highlighted the numerous social and political problems that continue to plague the nation to this day. Ousmane Sembène was the most prominent of these.

More recently the cinematic output has regrettably dried up, but the few films that do see a release area all the more significant for it. Beyond that, the impact of the earlier movement, one of the most important in African history, can still be felt across the continent today. Here’s my top 5.

 

Touki Bouki

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Youth rebellion is a pertinent topic wherever you go in the world. Escaping equally so. For teens and young adults growing up in and around 70s Dakar, escape must have often felt like the only option. Mutated by an increasing tourist presence and an influx of moneyed students and aristocrats, cultural identity was becoming all the more difficult to maintain. This is the framing for Djibril Diop Mambéty’s weird, funny 1973 social commentary. Filmed for a paltry $30,000 (around $160,000 in today’s money), Mambéty created a really unique piece of artistry. It follows Mory, a young troublemaker and his student girlfriend as they try and con and steal their way into a ticket out of Dakar and on to a better life in Paris.

This is an idealised, romanticised Paris, the one Josephine Baker was singing about (fitting, since she can be heard doing just that on the soundtrack), a wonderland miles from the threats of violence that haunt them as they travel across Dakar on Mory’s motorbike. The French influence spreads further still, the film shares a great deal of stylistic DNA with French New Wave, the jump cuts, non-linearity, repeated musical cues and general air of strangeness evoke people like Jean-Luc Godard and Alan Resnais. Some of the more peculiar touches are a little difficult to grasp, I’ve seen the film several times and I still can’t quite figure out why the man who steals Mory’s bike seems to be a Captain Caveman cosplayer who lives in a tree. All weirdness aside though, it’s an interesting, deep film with a lot of wider implications, the only warning I’ll issue is that there are a couple of scenes that include footage from a real slaughterhouse, not for the faint of heart (or those wishing to steer clear of vegetarianism).

 

Mossane

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All African film directors belong to a pioneering movement, but to be the first African woman south of the Sahara to direct a film that gained commercial release, that’s massive. Safi Faye is that woman. Originally a teacher, she directed a string of fiercely defiant, memorable films starting from the early 70s in a budding film industry that was almost exclusively male. Africa needed a loud female voice even more then than it does now and for many Faye was that voice. She continued to direct right up until 1996, when she made her opus: Mossane.

The titular character is a 14-year-old girl from a Serer family. She’s perhaps the most well-liked (and coveted) person in the small rural community she calls home and as such she is betrothed to a wealthy foreigner. She has other ideas, forming a deep, meaningful, secret relationship with a local student. It’s not a complicated set-up and at a glance appears to be somewhat removed from the usual blend of documentary and fiction that Faye favored, but like so many African films there’s a deeper meaning to all of this. The film sheds some light on the history of the Serer people, whilst drawing into question the flaws of certain traditions, especially when they’re applied to adolescents.

It’s a tragic tale of a girl whose defiant passion and individuality drives her from her home and loved-ones, haunted by outdated traditions and a collective obsession with her beauty. Powerful stuff indeed.

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