African Cinema

...Johnson Traore, trained in Paris...

...There is a strong similarity between African stories and the language of film, and it is not surprising that African cinema, born only thirty years ago, should already have produced some first-rate filmmakers and films that rank with the great classics of world cinema...

...the Congolese Sebastien Kamba, also trained in France...

...His films, like his books, take a shrewd look at the past and present attitudes of the peoples of Africa...

...So the highest form of artistic expression is storytelling: not merely the narrative as such, but the whole scene of storyteller and audience, with pauses and rhythm and concrete ways of representing the word...

...Wend Kuuni is a psychological drama that tells the story of a child who is abandoned by his family and becomes autistic...

...Time, like space, is elastic, and does not place a frame around the action...

...The latter began his career as an actor with Jean Rouch, the French filmmaker and pioneer of cinema verite, a movement that had a profound influence on cinema d'auteur, or the distinctively personal style of film directing, in the 1960s...

...In Lettre paysanne (Letter from the Country, 1975), by Safi Faye, we watch the everyday life of the filmmaker's own village during the winter months...

...The beauty of the countryside, the peace of the natural world, the weight of time, although strongly present, do not obscure the questions of survival that the village must face, and do not deflect any of the criticism that may be aroused by traditional customs, manners, and morals...

...and the self-taught Mustapha Alassane, from Niger, to mention only the best known...

...The historical film emerged in Africa in the 1980s, addressing new themes that do not necessarily stem from the modernity/tradition dichotomy...

...African cinema uses the tradition/modernity dichotomy to illustrate political issues as well as cultural and psychological themes...

...But the growing interest shown by international producers in this cinema d'auteur will, perhaps, result in a breakthrough...

...Safi Faye, the first African woman to distinguish herself as a talented filmmaker...

...Reprinted from the UNESCO Courier, March 1988...

...In Africa, modernity and tradition seem incompatible, more so than anywhere else...

...But although this cinema is important in the eyes of connoisseurs and film buffs, it is still relatively unknown to a wider audience, whether at home or abroad, since it has developed in isolation, virtually without help from the outside world, sure of its inspiration, its strength, and its rights...

...the Senegalese Djibil Diop, director of only one full-length feature film, Touki-Bouki, but one which is regarded as one of the most important products of the national film industry...

...Events occur as if the eternity of the gods had dawned on Earth, and as if, despite the thousand-and-one preoccupations of everyday life, time did not matter...

...African filmmakers are aware of the weight of their history and the disasters of submission, and until the late 1970s they used films on mythological, fictional, and documentary subjects, and also cartoons, as a means of describing all aspects of what is to be African: in everyday life (Borom sarret—The Building Site—a short film made in 1962 by Ousmane Sembene), in relations with the West (F.V.V.A., 1972, by Mustapha Alassane), in dreams and weaknesses (Le wazzon polygame, a medium-length film made in 1971 by Oumarou Ganda), and in the battle for freedom (Soleil 0, 1969, by Med Hondo...

...For this very reason, despite the crisis affecting the film world everywhere, African cinema today is indispensable, since its aesthetic, its themes, and its symbols are like an influx of new blood...

...The first full-length African feature film, La Noire de . . . (Black Girl), was made in 1966 by Ousmane Sembene...

...The action of these two films unfolds in traditional societies, where the conflict between tradition and modernity is no longer used as a frame of reference...

...Whereas for Sembene the two cultures, traditional and modern, must blend into a single culture, in order to eliminate both the ignorance behind a blind respect for tradition and the powerlessness that is often engendered by a false concept of modernity, Oumarou Ganda made a painful choice in favor of village life...

...Two major obstacles stand in its way: technique and funding...

...the Gabonese Pierre Marie Dong and Philippe Mory, both trained in France...

...this makes it an art with a close grip on reality, traditionally an art of entertainment but, besides, an area for reflection on all the social, political, and cultural problems that arise in a particular society...

...African cinema is striving to find a point of convergence between these two types of society...

...the marvelous Gaston Kabore from Burkina Faso, trained in Paris...

...Based on a minor news item, this film traces the reasons that induce a young Senegalese domestic servant, working for some former cooperants (French Peace Corps workers) who have settled in Antibes, to commit suicide...

...Thus Med Hondo's very beautiful Saraaunia (1986) or Emitar (Thunder God, 1971) and Ceddo (Outsiders, 1977) by Ousmane Sembene, highlight the life of village communities SUMMER • 1992 • 351 African Cinema in their struggles against foreign invaders, whether military as in the first two films or religious as in the third...

...the Cameroonian Daniel Kamwa and the Mauritanian Med Hondo, already mentioned, both of whom came to the cinema from the theater...

...This cinema emerged and developed virtually without support of any kind, whether financial, political, cultural, or technical...

...Thirty years later, the working conditions of filmmakers are still extremely precarious...

...Although the wealth and complexity of African cinema cannot be denied, it is nevertheless not equipped to compete against the powerful world film industry...

...He very quickly realized that, in Africa, films reached a wider audience than literature...

...In counterpart to time and space, rhythm is provided by movement, by the most mundane gestures, or by speech, which always takes on an oracular tone...

...This opposition between the modern world and the world of the ancestors is a constantly recurring theme in the works of two of the founding fathers of African cinema, Ousmane Sembene, from Senegal, who is also a novelist, and the late Oumarou Ganda, from Niger...

...His output also includes works of a mythological nature, such as The Black Goddess (1979), or political films like Cry Freedom (1980), a protest against colonization...

...Cinema, which is the art of metaphorical representation of human situations and feelings, has a language of absolutes...

...Set against this highly political and intellectual form of cinema, there is also the commercial cinema of the English-speaking countries...

...In SaItane (1973), by Oumarou Ganda, the harmonious balance of power collapses very swiftly when such occurrences as adultery or incest (as in Niaye, 1965, by Ousmane Sembene) start to influence the behavior of those who hold these powers in trust...

...Ruy Guerra, from Mozambique, who worked mainly in Brazil...

...While the themes represented in African films are for the most part universal, the unity of time, space, and rhythm found in them is resolutely a part of African culture and civilization...

...It brooks no half measures and never says anything that does not signify: in this it differs from literature...

...In Yeelen, the confrontation between father and son causes natural disasters as well as serious economic and social disruption...

...But the story ends with a prophecy foretelling that a day will come when the Bambara will once again be a great nation...

...African filmmaking carries within itself the seeds of a renewal of cinematographic language...

...Indeed, cinema came late to the African continent, at a time when "maximum technical know-how" has become necessary in order to make a film with universal appeal...

...Other pioneers of African cinema are the late Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, from Senegal, and the Ivorians Timit6 Bassori and Desire Ecare, all three trained in Paris...

...Just like the wide, generous open space of the African landscape, time cannot be hemmed in by man, and it takes its natural course, independent of human activities...

...This is what makes it altogether human...

...It is nevertheless remarkable to observe that, once the drama has been worked out, the rigor of tradition restores order...

...Conversely, women and the younger generation are bearers 350 • DISSENT African Cinema of the hope that someday a fine, strong African society will emerge...

...The film's symbolism is powerful and in some respects recalls the tragedy of the slave trade...

...352 • DISSENT...

...Between 1975 and 1980, some very interesting filmmakers joined the ranks of the pioneers: the Malian Souleymane Cissê, trained, like Sembene, in the USSR...

...By contrast, the rhythm of these films is beaten out by human hands...

...His analysis therefore coincides to some extent with that of Ousmane Sembene...

...This is true, above all, of the first generation of African filmmakers...

...But this inner silence cannot remain impervious to the warmth of fellowship emanating from the community...

...the Guinean Moussa Kemoko Diakite, trained in the Federal Republic of Germany...

...Ousmane Sembene, aware of the cultural and political role that any creative artist has a duty to assume in society, became a film director the better to attain his chosen objectives...

...This is true, for example, of the very fine full-length films of Gaston Kabore, including Wend Kuuni (The Gift of God, 1982) and that of Souleymane Cisse, Yeelen (The Light, 1987), which won the Jury Prize at the 1987 Cannes Festival...

...Since mainly experimental and art films are being produced, the African economic sector has not concerned itself with setting up a film industry...

...The social order, which has been destroyed by the modern world, is particularly well portrayed in these films...

...With rare courage and lucidity, this man strives through his work to denounce vacillating, cowardly, or ineffectual behavior on the part of those who are motivated by greed for profit and glory, masquerading as religious faith and respect for tradition...

...This second generation of filmmakers won international recognition for African cinema...

...and, lastly, the film director, novelist, playwright, and producer, the Nigerian Ola Balogun, also trained in Paris...

...Work in the fields in the mornings, the mid-day meal break, as day follows day, punctuated by scenes under the palaver tree and snatches of conversation, all of which are strands imperceptibly weaving the fabric of the film...

...Apart from the similarity between the latter and African storytelling, African civilization possesses another feature that links it with the language of film: the fact that the imaginary and the real are placed on an equal footing...

...If the historical film is proving more and more attractive to African filmmakers, it is because this type of subject affords an opportunity to describe the religious, political and social order of rural communities and to show their solidarity in the face of adversity, while drawing attention to village philosophy and ethics...

...Yeelen is a dramatic work in which a father's jealousy of his son, who is to be initiated into sacred knowledge, locks the two in mortal combat...

...These works are, nevertheless, closer to Western cinema than those of the Frenchspeaking African countries...

...However, he was well aware that village life cannot remain set apart from economic and cultural developments...

...Yeelen by Souleymane Cisse shows that, with adequate funding and techniques, a film can emerge from the ghetto in which African cinema is at present languishing...

...The Nigerian Ola Balogun, who is probably the only African filmmaker to have directed and produced more than ten full-length feature films, has had a run of successes with works adapted from Yoruba theatre, in which marvelous stories unfold in a universe of music and dance...