Emitaï

A Diola village in Senegal while the Second World War is going on. The French army wants two things: it will take the young men as soldiers and it will collect the village's rice. The men are taken by force. Then they come back for the rice. The women hide it and will not say where it is. The men of the village gather, consult the gods and debate what to do; the debate goes on. The women are kept waiting under the sun and still do not speak. The army extends the time and hardens its stance. Ousmane Sembène writes and directs. It is a Senegalese production. The situation behind the narrative is historical: the colonial administration took both soldiers and crops from West Africa during the war, and villages that resisted were punished. The real opposition the film builds is not between coloniser and native; it is between the men delaying with ceremony and debate and the women resisting directly. Sembène does not shrink from criticising tradition, and the narrative also questions the order of authority inside the village. The film was shot largely in the Diola language, an early example of the use of local languages in African cinema. It went long unshown in France and its screening was restricted in Senegal as well. The form is plain: long takes, little music and a camera working almost as documentary. Who it is for: anyone curious about African cinema and the history of colonialism. Who it is not for: the pace is very slow, the acting amateur, and the narrative asks for context.