Moolaadé

Context

To outsiders, the act known as "female genital cutting" is often shocking. Practitioners surgically remove part or all of the female genitals. Traditionally, it is cut with an iron sheet or a knife, then sutured back with needlework or a thorn. There is no anesthetic during the whole process, and the disinfection is not thorough. Gynecologist Dr Rosemary Mburu of Kenya estimates that as many as 15% of circumcised girls die of the excessive loss of blood or infection of the wound. Even the girls who survive the circumcision will endure lifelong pain. The lower part of the body is always in pain while having sexual intercourse, urinating, or even working. This affects their ability to achieve orgasm or sexual pleasure of any kind and might also affect fertility.

Plot

The film is set in a colourful Burkina Faso village dotted with termite mounds, and a mosque made from clay that resembles a gigantic hedgehog. The village is a symbol of green Africa, a time capsule that nonetheless is not immune to the influences of the outside and ‘modern’ world.

Collé is the second of her husband's three wives. She is the most intelligent, humorous, charming, and is also loved most by her husband, who is portrayed as a temperate enlightened man. Her nubile daughter, Amasatou, has become engaged, although she has not undergone female genital cutting, considered a prerequisite for marriage in the local tradition. Collé opposes this practice. This has led the elders in the village, women as well as men, to despise her daughter. Amasatou herself unceasingly requests to have her genitals cut to secure her social status and marriage acceptance, but Collé remains unmoved. She is willing to protect not only her daughter from the life-threatening genital cutting but also four little girls who join her to refuse the practice. Collé draws a symbolic line, the colorful rope Moolaadé, a "magical protection," across the gate of the family's premises. Moolaadé prevents the women elders who carry out the practice, and who have been searching for the girls, from entering the house.

In the beginning, the first wife seems to be against Collé's plan to protect the girls. However, later they become closer and she tells Collé that she also opposes female genital cutting. She feared making it known, but has been helping her all along, without anyone's notice.

While facing her daughter's request to be circumcised, Collé explains that she does not want her daughter to end up on the same road she travelled. Her first reason is that it has too many indefinite outcomes, some of which can be fatal. An even bigger reason is that Collé had two unsuccessful pregnancies before Amasatou, which caused her great physical and emotional pain and were almost fatal. In a flashback, there is a scene of her and her husband having sexual intercourse which it clear is causing her physical pain. He falls asleep, while she is unable to do so because the sexual intercourse brings unbearable pain for her rather than pleasure. She keeps biting her ring finger, symbol of her marriage, and dares not say a single word even when her finger bleeds. At dawn, she is still awake to wash her body, as well as her blood off the bed sheet.

If Collé represents African women who awaken to resist patriarchal control, then her daughter's fiance Ibrahima, a rich, upstanding, and open-minded young man living in France, one of Africa's former colonizers, who returns, filmically representing the enlightened elite educated abroad who is welcomed home and observes the barbaric tradition of his village home. His knowledge, money and technologies such as television are appreciated. He witnesses a funeral of two little girls, who desperately drowned themselves in a well to avoid the mutilation of their genitals. The girls' relatives are sad, but the incident does not lead the villagers to question the tradition. Ibrahima is shocked and worried by this scene which keeps fermenting in his mind. Meanwhile, Ibrahima's father wants him to renounce his engagement to Amasatou, and marry his innocent eleven-year-old cousin instead, who has already undergone female genital cutting. Ibrahima refuses to do so, recognizing such an act as child abuse, and visits Amasatou's house despite what the villagers say. He confirms her as his fiancée, regardless of her "impure" status according to the local tradition.

The African women's most important daily entertainment, besides sitting together and chatting under the tree shadow enjoying the cool air, is enjoying the radio which transmits news of the world and the music. Some incidents including Ibrahima's revolt against his father on the engagement and Collé's protection of the five little girls, including her own daughter, from the life-threatening female genital cutting in the village causes the elders to think that the atmosphere is bad. Collé's husband has lost the ability to control his own wife and the elders insist that he beat her with a leather whip in the presence of the community to restore order. The elders want her to utter the magic word so they can take away the four little girls from her protection but, no matter how hard her husband whips her, she endures, refusing to give her tormenters the satisfaction of a scream or cry. Opposite groups of women shout to her to revoke or to be steadfast, but no woman interferes. When she is on the verge of collapse, the merchant steps out and stops the whipping.

The womanizing merchant is called Mercenaire by people in the village. He is a war veteran who has become a merchant. When he converses with Ibrahima, he accuses him, his father, and his uncle of pedophilia and is suddenly no longer concerned about the money that he could possibly get from the rich young man. He is bringing all the plastic junk to the village; the junk is brightly and boldly colored as the magnificent costumes the people wear in Africa. He sells his stuff at extremely high prices (he even raises the prices when Ibrahima came to pay for his dad's bill). Later he is hunted out of the village and, when out of sight, murdered.

During the whipping, one of the four girls' mother steals her daughter from Collé's house and sends her to get her genitals cut, although the little girl screams and tries to resist. The girl dies as a result of the cutting and her mother regrets her previous support of it. The other mothers all see the tragedy happen and thus change their minds and begin opposing genital cutting.

From the men's point of view, the radio is a bad influence on the women because it teaches them things from the outside world, such as the idea of equality. Therefore, the elders decide that all the radios in the village must be confiscated and burned. Although all the radios are supposed to be burned, some are hidden by the women of the village. The women are united because of the pain caused by the genital cutting. They are all mourning, they are all awakened, they seize the blade and pursue the genital cutters, shouting, “No more genital cutting!” Ibrahima stands up to his father, says he is not going to listen to him, and announces that he is going to marry Amasatou because he is proud of her. The end of the movie is the smoke of the burning radios, which speaks both to speaking out and repression of speech.

Cast

Critical

This movie received positive reviews over all. Review aggregate Metacritic assigned the film 91/100 based on 26 Critics, in which 24 are positive and 2 are mixed. On the review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of 72 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 8.5/10. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "for me the best film at Cannes 2004, a story vibrating with urgency and life. It makes a powerful statement and at the same time contains humor, charm and astonishing visual beauty". Dana Stevens of The New York Times found "To skip Moolaade would be to miss an opportunity to experience the embracing, affirming, world-changing potential of humanist cinema at its finest." Desson Thomson of Washington Post said "Moolaade, in short, is a movie to rock the soul". Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times, said "There's such a rich sense of the fullness of life in Moolaadé that it sustains those passages that are truly and necessarily harrowing". Melissa Levine of Dallas Observer said "It's not easy to pull off a good morality tale. That's why Moolaad, the new film from 81-year-old Senegalese writer-director Ousmane Sembene, feels like such an exceptional success. Its moral center is painfully clear, but so is its humanity".

However, Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter gave a 60 and announced that "As drama the film mostly serves to illustrate the two sides of this crucial social debate in Africa". Phil Hall of Film Threat gave only 40/100 and found the movie "Achieves the impossible in taking a genuine socio-political tragedy and turning it into an anvil drama which will fray the patience of the most sympathetic audiences".

Box Office

"Moolaadé" took in $11,982 on its opening weekend. In 41 weeks, the total domestic is $215,646, foreign $218,907.

Accolades

Film critic Roger Ebert was a big supporter of the film, naming it one of his top ten of the year, and later adding it to his list of great movies.