Ousmane Sembene - Emitaï AKA God of Thunder (1971)

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Quoting www.newint.org/issue276/reviews.htm

T H EC L A S S I C
Emitai
...being the first major dramatic film of the liberated sub-Saharan cinema.

"Film should be a school of history," says Ousmane Sembene of Senegal, widely considered the father of African cinema. "We have to have the courage to say that in the colonial period we were sometimes colonized with the help of our own leaders... We mustn't be ashamed of our faults and our errors."

Sembene made these statements concrete with the 1971 premiere of Emitai, his visually rich and complex drama set in the Diola society of rural Senegal. Perhaps the ideas struck too close to home. The film was immediately banned in Senegal, indeed throughout Africa.

Emitai tells the story of key incidents that took place in French colonial Senegal during the Second World War. The film centres on attempts by the colonial administration to impose a new rice tax in a Diola village and the resistance that followed. The community becomes divided over what strategy to take. The traditional elders are backed into a corner and humiliated, while the village women adopt new tactics and take strong action. In a series of startling and vivid scenes, visions of the gods appear to the elders, while in another part of the village women rapidly organize and hide the substantial rice crop.

Emitai

The Diola people Sembene focuses on in this film are a small ethnic minority who possess a distinct language, culture and history, and refer to their part of the world as "the Sacred Forest". Before European colonization the Diola organized themselves as a stateless society, "roughly speaking as a democracy," says Sembene. The traditional elders functioned as political spokespeople, especially in times of crisis. Women played a central role, with responsibility for agricultural production. The Diola religion dictates that the rice crop is sacred. Although it can be eaten, it is the property of the gods -- and this forms the thematic core and central paradox of Emitai. The rice cannot be given up because it belongs to the gods. But if it is not given up the society will be destroyed by the French.

Based on his own screenplay, Emitai was Sembene's third drama and the film that launched his world reputation. But reaching an international audience was not his aim. Rather he wanted to communicate directly with the Diola society. He is proud that the villagers "were happy to hear that there was a beautiful language for them". The film is not about the elders, or the women, the act of resistance, the cruelty of the French or the leading characters. It is all these at once, touching on economics, social structure, religion and culture. The pace may be slow for those of us raised on Hollywood action, but there is a richness of gesture and a symbolic language that holds the attention of any audience. Western viewers will be unable to distinguish fully between the natural speech of the villagers and the stylistic embellishments of the actors, yet this lively fluctuation between the natural speech and artistic play must surely be a source of richness for Diola audiences.

Senegal today is a major cultural and economic power in West Africa. After gaining independence in 1960 it immediately embarked on a widely-copied form of African state socialism. The results have been mixed. Strong nationalized sectors of the economy are now offset by a dangerous reliance on International Monetary Fund policies and on peanuts as an export crop. Human-rights abuses have been widespread, and key artists and intellectuals, such as Sembene, have faced a rocky road.

Born in Senegal in 1923, Sembene served in the French army during the Second World War, then moved to France where he became a dockworker -- and immediately launched a prolific writing career. His reputation was quickly established, especially with the novel God's Bits of Wood (1955), based on Senegal's great railway strike of the 1940s. Then in 1960, in a dramatic shift of gears, Sembene moved to the Soviet Union to study film-making. Four years later, armed with rock-solid skills and a clear political drive, he was back in Senegal deeply involved in film production, in order, he says, to reach a wider, national audience than he could through literature. Senegal has one of the poorest literacy rates in Africa -- 50 per cent for men, only 25 per cent for women.

African cinema has often looked to Senegal to play a leading role. This is partly because unlike the British or the Portuguese, the French provided funding for indigenous film-making in their former colonies in West Africa.

Emitai marked out different terrain and set tough new standards for African cinema, however. It was produced almost entirely with African money and made few concessions to non-African audiences. It presented a daring new artistic discussion of political issues concerning Africa's past and future. The critique of colonialism was vigorous without simplifying the tensions in African society. And finally, Emitai was unique at the time in its strong portrayal of African women.

Peter Steven

Emitai directed by Ousmane Sembene was released in 1971 and is distributed by Metro Pictures.

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Monday, May 31, 2010

Ousmane Sembene - Emitaï AKA God of Thunder (1971)

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