Matatu: Journal of African Culture and Society With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema 9042001437, 9789042001435, 9042001542

Table of contents :
Introduction. Kenneth W. HARROW: Women and African Cinema. ARTICLES. Stephen A. ZACKS: A Problematic Sign of African Difference in Reassemblage. Suzanne H. MACRAE: The Mature and Older Women of African Film. Beti ELLERSON: The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy: Conflicting Paradigms in the Representation of Women in African Film. Ratiba HADJ-MOUSSA: The Locus of Tension: Gender in Algerian Cinema. J.O.J. NWACHUKWU-AGBADA: Women in Igbo Language Films: The Virtuous and the Villainous. Mildred MORTIMER: Nouveau regard, nouvelle parole: le cinema d'Assia Djebar. Madeleine BORGOMANO: Visage de femmes: lecture intertextuelle de Finzan, film de Cheikh Oumar Sissoko et du roman de Kourouma, Les Soleils des independances. William A. VINCENT: The Unreal but Visible Line: Difference and Desire for the Other in Chocolat. Kenneth W. HARROW: Women with Open Eyes, Women of Stone and Hammers: the Problematic Encounter between Western Feminism and African Feminist Filmmaking Practice. Nancy SCHMIDT: Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers: Agendas for Research. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Emilie NGO-NGUIDJOL: Focusing on Women in African Cinema: An Annotated Bibliography. CREATIVE WRITING. Taban LO LIYONG: Three Poems from The Cows of Shambat. J.B. TATI-LEOTARD: Three Poems from Poemes de la Mer / Poems of the Sea. INTERVIEWS. SPEAKING FOR WOMEN: Interview with Anne Mungai (Frances Harding). SARRAOUNIA: AN EPIC OF RESISTANCE. Interview with Med Hondo (Francoise Pfaff). MARKETPLACE. Obituary: In memoriam Rex Collings (James Currey). Because, Don't Forget, We Are Still Emerging. Interview with Amryl Johnson (with an appendix on her publications) (Jana Gohrisch). REVIEWS. Nadine GORDIMER: Writing and Being. (Geoffrey V. Davis) African Literature Today 20: New Trends and Generations in African Literature, eds. Eldred DUROSIMI JONES and Marjorie JONES. (Craig W. McLuckie) Mineke SCHIPPER: Source of All Evil: African Proverbs and Sayings on Women. (Thomas Bruckner) Manfred F. PRINZ: Die kulturtragenden Institutionen Senegals. Zwischen kolonialem Erbe und Unabhangigkeit. (Amadou Booker Sadji) David KERR: African Popular Theatre from Pre-colonial Times to the Present Day. (Christopher Balme) Jana GOHRISCH: (Un)Belonging? Geschlecht, Klasse, Rasse und Ethnizitat in der britischen Gegenwartsliteratur: Joan Rileys Romane. (Helge Nowak) ADDRESSES. Acknowledgments: Cover Photograph: Portrait of Flora M'mbungu-Schelling, courtesy Flora M'mbungu-Schelling. Poems by Taban Lo Liyong and J.B. Tati-Leotard courtesy African Books Collective, Oxford.

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With Open Eyes Women

and African Cinema

Matatu Journal for African Culture and Society

General Editor: Holger G. Ehling

Co-Editors: Geoffrey V. Davis, Frank Schulze-Engler Caribbean Editor: Gordon Collier

Board of Advisors: Anne Adams (Ithaca) Wolfgang Bender (Mainz) Eckhard Breitinger (Bayreuth) M.J. Daymond (Durban) Raoul Granqvist (Umea) Willfried F, Feuser (Port Harcourt) Anne Fuchs (Nice) Jürgen Jansen (Aachen) Reinhard Küsgen (Gôttingen)

Jiirgen Martini (Magdeburg) Henning Melber (Windhoek) Dieter Riemenschneider (Frankfurt) Amadou Booker Sadji (Dakar) Joachim Schultz (Bayreuth) John A. Stotesbury (Joensuu) Peter O. Stummer (Miinchen) Ahmed Yerima (Lagos)

Editorial Assistants: Hanno Egner, Marlies Glaser, Ulrike Jamin, Marion Pausch, Andrea Pohl, Barbara Stute, Monika Trebert

Editor’s address: Matatu, Damaschkeanger 139, 60488 Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Phone/Fax: (x-49-

69) 761585, E-mail: [email protected] Publisher’s address: Editions Rodopi B.V., Keizersgracht 302-304,

1016 EX

Amsterdam,

The

Netherlands; Rodopi, 233 Peachtree Street N.E., Suite 404, Atlanta, GA 30303-1504, USA. Subscription rates: Institutions Hfl. 80.00 (plus postage); individuals Hfl. 52.00 (incl. postage). Matatu

is published twice yearly with approx. 180 pages per issue. The subscription is valid for one year and is renewed automatically if not cancelled by September 30 of each year. Matatu offers special rates for gift subscriptions for African and Caribbean libraries. Please enquire from thepublishers. All correspondence on editorial matters, manuscripts, and books for review should be sent to the editor. Matatu invites scholarly contributions as well as creative writing. Manuscripts may be submitted in English or French and should conform to the MLA Handbook. submitted on an IBM-compatible diskette.

Whenever possible, texts should be

With Open Eyes Women

and African Cinema

Edited by Kenneth W. Harrow

oy GY

AMSTERDAM - ATLANTA, GA 1997

CONCORDIA

à IBRARIES UNIV ERSITY |

Matatu

cies

Number 19

Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions de “ISO 9706:1994, Information et documentation - Papier pour documents - Prescriptions pour la permanence”. The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”.

ISBN: 90-420-0154-2 (bound) ISBN: 90-420-0143-7 (paper) ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - Atlanta, GA 1997 Printed in the Netherlands

CONTENTS Introduction KENNETH

W.

HARROW:

Women and African Cinema

vii

Articles STEPHEN

xReasenblag

X Suga ay

A. ZACKS: A Problematic Sign of African Difference in

E H. MACRAE: The Mature and Older Women of African Film

(LELLERS ON: The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy: Conflicting Paradigms in the Representation of Women in African Film

/ “ee inema

HADJ-MOUSSA:

The Locus of Tension: Gender in Algerian N_OGe-pa_

J.O¢J. NWACHUKWU-AGBADA: Women in IgboLanguage Films: e Virtuous and the Villainous

Ba LDRED

MORTIMER:

d’Assia Djebar

MADELEINE

31

Tux Ve

PAT GA

45

+

by Marcing J

S/

Nouveau regard, nouvelle parole: le cinéma

95

BORGOMANO: Visage de femmes: lecture intertexuelle de

Finzan, film de Cheikh Oumar Sissoko et du roman de Kourouma, Les Soleils

des indépendances WILLIAM

111

A. VINCENT:

The Unreal but Visible Line: Difference and ÿ-

Desire for the Other in Chocolat

125

NNETH W. HARROW: Women with Open Eyes, Women of Stone nd Hammers: the Problematic Encounter between Western Feminism and YE

African Feminist Filmmaking Practice

a CY SCHMIDT: for Research

133

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers: Agendas 163 _—

Bibliography EMILIE NGO-NGUIDJOL: Focusing on Women in African Cinema: An Annotated Bibliography,

191

Creative TABAN

Writing

LO LIYONG: Three Poems from The Cows of Shambat

42

J.B. TATI-LEOTARD: Three Poems from Poémes de la Mer / Poems of 159

the Sea

Interviews SPEAKING FOR WOMEN: Interview with Anne Mungai (Frances Harding)

81

SARRAOUNIA: AN EPIC OF RESISTANCE. Interview with Med Hondo (Françoise Pfaff)

TS

Marketplace Obituary: In memoriam Rex Collings (James Currey)

219

“Because, Don’t Forget, We Are Still Emerging.” Interview with Amryl Johnson (with an appendix on her publications) (Jana Gohrisch)

221

Reviews NADINE

GORDIMER:

Writing and Being. (Geoffrey V. Davis)

234

African Literature Today 20: New Trends and Generations in African

Literature, eds. ELDRED DUROSIMI JONES and MARJORIE JONES. (Craig W. McLuckie)

237

MINEKE SCHIPPER: Source of All Evil: African Proverbs and Sayings on Women. (Thomas Briickner)

248

MANFRED F. PRINZ: Die kulturtragenden Institutionen Senegals. Zwischen

kolonialem Erbe und Unabhdngigkeit.

(Amadou Booker Sadji)

252)

DAVID KERR: African Popular Theatre from Pre-colonial Times to the Present Day. (Christopher Balme)

255

JANA GOHRISCH: (Un)Belonging? Geschlecht, Klasse, Rasse und Ethnizität in der britischen Gegenwartsliteratur: Joan Rileys Romane. (Helge Nowak)

258

Addresses

262

Acknowledgments: Cover Photograph: Portrait of Flora M’mbungu-Schelling, courtesy Flora M’mbungu-Schelling Poems by Taban Lo Liyong and J.B. Tati-Léotard courtesy African Books Collective, Oxford.

With Open Eyes Women and African Cinema

Introduction

cept for local audiences and specialists; and, as a result, there.is.little

growing;-important body of womanist, feminist, orsimply female ,ers-were inabout ten tofifteen years ago. As with the early studies of African women’s writing, like Ngambika (1986),' Scholarly work on wg

er

i outsiders here meaning non-Africans, likeTrinh T.

Noe aSEos and C LI PRSNENNON lat, 1988), as wéll as African men, like Cheikh Oumar Sisso Sissoko Finzan, 1986) and Med Hondo (Sarraounia, 1987). 4 eB excl ctu As with early women’s literature in Africa, one finds much testimonial and pragmatic filmmaking practice, with examples ranging from the docu-dramas of the doyenne of women’s films, Safi Faye, to the straightforward presentations of Anne-Laure Folly. However, the post-modern age of dialogical communication has not by-passed the genius of other practitioners for whom silence, gaps, and bodily expression, so important in female discursive theory, retain a central role in cinematic and feminist expression. Here the patient and loving

attention provided Mozambican emigrant women laborers by Flora ' Carole Boyce Davies/Anne Adams Graves: Ngambika. (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1986). : With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

KENNETH

W. HARROW

M’mbugu-Schelling (These Hands [1992]) sets a new standard in cinematic expressiveness, while Assia Djebar’s films chronicling the

women’s background roles on the soundtrack ofAlgerian colonial history, and their vital places in 130 years of resistance in the Algerianrevolution, carry through the same daring, post-modernist feminist project as her recent writings on Algerian women. with filmmakers like, Sarah Maldoror whose Sambizanga Ge an early sd) Maldoror is an “outsider,” a Guadeloupean raised in France, marrie to an Angolan MPLA leader, in whose film adaptation of Luandino Vieira’s revolutionary novel, The Real Life of Domingos Xavier, the focus is changed entirely from the male protagonist and martyr, Domingos, to his wife, Maria, and the women surrounding her. Maldoror’s work has its roots in Pontecorvo, Italian neo-Realism, and such films as The Battle of Algiers (1965). Revolutionary and com-

mitted film, likethe literatures of the 1950s;andearly 1960s--repre-

sent one dimenof sion women’s cine in Africa, ma paralleling the

work of male filmmakers like Gerima, Sembéne, and others.

From another perspective, one could consider thematrilineage established by Safi Faye, whose own work we would trace back to the cinéma vérité of Jean Rouch with whom Safi Faye had originally worked. Faye’s Peasant Letter (1975) has attained a quasi-canonical status, and has certainly influenced the direction taken by Folly, Anne Mungai, and others for whom the goal of chronicling la condition féminine still remains critical. Both men and women filmmakers have

continued thisprogram, so thatissuesTikeexcision, polygamy, forced

marriages, the oppression of unattached women, economic exploita

tion, religious and traditional sexism, and so on, are highlighted

across a spect

orks like Sissoko’s Finzan (1986),_Sembéne

_Ousmane’s Kala eee Femmes aux yeux ouverts (1993) and Femmes du Niger (1993), Kamal Dehane’s Femmes d ‘Alger (1993), Boureima Nikiema’s Ma fille ne sera pas excisée (1990), Godwin Mawuru’s Neria (1992) [with the collaboration of Tsitsi * Luandino Vieira: The Real Life of Domingos Xavier. ({1971]. Trans. Michael Wolfers. London: Heinemann, 1978).

Vill

Women and African Cinema: Introduction Dangarembga],

and Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar’s

Women

Warriors (1994). The issue of voice, the problematics of speaking for as opposed to speaking next to, as Trin inh-ha would have it inReassemblage, remainsSep In ee sense, it is here that we can locate the unstated split between a post-modern feminist theoretical position, and a modernist feminist, reformist cinematic practice. The split

can be seen in the different approaches taken by Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar, in their Women Warriors, on the one hand, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Assia Djebar, or Flora M’mbugu-Schelling on other. In the former, there is little concern, except for occasional service, paid to the politics of representation or identity. Women

and the lipare

defined, theiroppression detailed for them, their path to liberation laid out for them — sometimes by men, sometimes by non-A fricans, sometimes by other African women. The problem of the subject and the subject pposition is is displaced by the larger concern over social action. If Alice Walker would seem to loom larger than her African sisters and their daughters in Women Warriors, her visibility is significant only because of her prominence, not because of the filmmaker’s approach: the goal of social reform is consistently presented throughout as though the issues of realism, representation, and voice had never been problematized in feminist theory. Without leaving aside the social reformism of the above, Djebar has put forward a cinema of silence, a cinema of cries and songs, that echoes the combative stances taken by Algerian women in the streets. This is the cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, a cinema no less tenacious in its devotion to the cause of women’s emancipation than are the fundamentalist or traditionalist doctrines in their opposition. Djebar, Faye, and dozens of other_African women no longer stand

_ alone as interlopers or newcomers in the male domain ofAfrican cin-

ema. Although conventional male disparagement of women’s profes-. sionalaccomplishments still represents a barrier to the> financing of “women’s films (aswe “see in AnneMungai’ssinterview), t the persistence and determination of dozens of women have resulted in what is

now a substantial body ofworks. Nancy Schmidt has constructed a major filmography showing that “women are engaged in filmmaking IX

KENNETH W. HARROW

throughout the subcontinent.” She_lists the names of seventy-five

women, and this does not even include North Africans. Most of the films were made in the 1980s or 1990s, although Safi Faye’s earliest

work dates to 1972, while Efua Sutherland collaborated in the creation of a film as early as 1967 and Thérèse Sita-Bella made a film in 1963. Schmidt has speculated that the higher visibility accorded African male filmmakers is due to the fact that women make far more documentary and television films than feature films. If that has been true up to now, it is certainly beginning to change with the efforts of Dyjebar, Mungai, Dangarembga, and other women of the 1990s for whom, like Sembéne, filmmaking has come to accompany or even supplant their literary efforts. Minuscule as efforts have been up till now to document African

women filmmaker’s work,stilllesshasbeen the work of bibliogra-

phers ofresearch onAfrican women’s film. Emilie Ngo-Nguidjol has determined that “no single bibliography devoted to women in Affri-

in this volume represents the first such effort? Likewise, the studies undertaken here represent new approaches, new connections, new visions of the roles of women on either side of

the camera. Suzanne H. Macrae turns her attention to roles of older or mature women, in a wide range of films. Beti Ellerson analyzes the

ways in whi

omen’s bodies, in fheir motions and manner

of presenting themselves, convey the specificity of their culture and values. Madeleine Borgomano draws the intertextual connection between Finzan and Ahmadou Kourouma’s Les Soleils des Indépendances. William Vincent examines the themes of desire and trans-

gression across the horizons constructed in Claire Denis’s Chocolat. In a unique and comprehensive overview, J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada

* It should be noted that Nancy Schmidt [Sub-Saharan African Films and Filmmake rs. ~ (London: Hans Zell, 1988); Sub-Saharan African Films and Filmmakers, 1987-1992. (London: Hans Zell, 1994)], John Gray [Blacks in Film and Television. (Westport , Ct.: Greenwood, 1990)], and Keith Shiri [Directory of African Film-Makers and Films. (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood 1992)] have included women in their own bibliogra phies on African cinema. “ Ahmadou Kourouma: Les Soleils des Indépendances. l’Université de Montréal, 1968).

(Montréal: Les Presses de

Women and African Cinema: Introduction

provides us with a survey of the ways women are represented in Igbo films — films not generally accessible outside of Nigeria. The Algerian cinema of the 1970s and early 1980s is presented within a sociological, political and anthropological context by Ratiba Hadj-Moussa, while Mildred Mortimer provides us with an in-depth analysis of Assia Dyebar’s remarkable achievement. Frances Harding’s interview with Anne Mungai provides insight into the motivations, inspiration, and difficulties encountered by the woman filmmaker, whereas Françoise Pfaff s interview with Med Hondo focuses upon the famous eponymous heroine of his epic Sarraounia (1987). Finally, Stephen Zacks discusses the idea of difference for the ethnographic filmmaker, demonstrating not only the importance of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s achievement in Reassemblage, but also the complexity of the issues

of representation,

otherness,

and signification,

thus

providing the contours for a discussion of feminist theory and-African women’s cinema. 7 The singularity of African women’s filmmaking may be seen, as in the work of Maldoror, in the substitution of a female-centered film for a male-centered narrative. However, that substitution must truly be deemed merely the beginning. Further consideration must now be given to the role of the body and its expressiveness, the eye and its new regard, the speech, its silences, its reformulation of discourse, and finally the camera as instrument and armament in the structure of women’s cinematic practice. Although the separation between this newly emergent women’s cinema and the already existent male cin-

ema will never be absolute, the formation of a significant body of works by women filmmakers has come to mean that des despite extraordinary obstacles, a new cinema has been established. F

NE SE

Xi

à

Kenneth W. Harrow

KENNETH W. HARROW

Films Cited Dehane, Kamal. Femmes d’Alger (1993).

Denis, Claire. Chocolat (1988). Faye, Safi. Peasant Letter (1975). Folly, Anne-Laure. Femmes aux yeux ouverts (1993) Folly, Anne-Laure. Femmes du Niger (1993).

Hondo, Med. Sarraounia (1987). Maldoror, Sarah. Sambizanga (1972).

Mawuru, Godwin. Neria (1992). Minh-ha, Trinh T. Reassemblage (1982). M’mbugu-Schelling, Flora. These Hands (1992).

Nikiema, Boureima. Ma fille ne sera pas excisée (1990). Parmar, Pratibha. Women Warriors (1994).

Pontecorvo, Gillo. The Battle of Algiers (1965). Sembène Ousmane. Xala (1974).

Sissoko, Cheikh Oumar. Finzan (1986).

XII

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STEPHEN A. ZACKS

A Problematic Sign of African Difference in Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage The novelty of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage, if I can casually invoke the difficult notion of the new for a moment, lies in its ability to function as a meditation, through the medium of film, on the great structural problematic of difference in the context of Dioula, Sereer, Manding, Bassari, Fulani, and Sarakhole villages in West Africa. Through pictures and sounds of different dances, architectures, industries, and songs, as much as through Trinh’s narration, the structural problematic itself is elucidated. Taking on the presumption that the camera is an instrument of simply recording truth, and of the classical subjectifying conceptions of inside and outside that generate hierarchies of knowledge, Trinh subverts and objectifies the pretentions of both cinema and anthropology, initiating a genre of critically reflective deconstructionist ethnographic film. Although many of her techniques, even her unconventional tech-

niques, are similar to those used by “great auteurs” — Godard’s New Wave jump cuts and sound discontinuities (A Woman is a Woman), Bergman’s philosophical reflexions on objectification and identity (Persona), Woody Allen’s foregrounding of his own subjective struggle in the context of the conventions of documentary (Husbands and Wives) — Trinh’s film surpasses all of these texts as a truly theoretical intellectual cinematic form, opening up a broad realm of possibilities for abstract thought within the cinematic discourse, disconnected from conventional plots and subjects: “A film about what? my friends ask. A film about Senegal; but what in Senegal?” " Constance Penley/Andrew Ross: “Interview with Trinh T. Minh-ha.” Camera Obscura 13/14 (1985), pp.87-111;105. The above also contains a “Sketch ofa Sound Track” in which all the quotes from Reassemblage are to be found at the page numbers indicated. With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

4

STEPHEN A. ZACKS

According to Trinh, the documentary filmmaker, like the anthropo-

logical observer, is dominated by a “will to knowledge” to use Foucault’s terminology, which, even when tempered by acknowledgment of the subjective position of the observer, ends up appropriating and linguistically objectifying the “other”; the need to make sense surpasses doubts regarding one’s political relationship to the “natives.”

Jean Rouch demonstrates this phenomonon most concisely in his article “On the Vicissitudes of the Self...” where his self-conscious efforts to reflect on the “self” of the observer/anthropological filmmaker are bracketed off from the objectively framed discussion of the fascinating activities of his subjects.? Les Maitres-Fous presents its ethnographic information in an even more profound vacuum.? The ~ voice-over narration, far from calling attention to itself, takes on the transcendental quality of a deity. The native is the analysand, whose actions are scrutinized to reveal the neurosis and unconscious motivations underlying their irrational behavior; the camera and the anthropologist collaborate to fashion the subject into a readable text. The curious eye of the camera condescends to frame the subject, turning him into an image-sign, while the narrational subjectivity is disguised by conventions of documentary film: stable medium shots cut to capture the significant details, “the a,b,c... of photography”, compelling the audience to overlook otherwise awkwardly intrusive moments such as the shot in which a flashlight is shined in the face of a convulsing, foaming African, enabling the voyeuristic camera to

capture the “truth.” Indeed, the conventions of cinéma vérité suggest that the truth value of the images are inherent: evidence to be used later, facts to be studied, interpreted, explained, but possessing an incontrovertible truth value. Trinh’s work proposes the question, isn’t it really the anthropologist/filmmaker/analyst who constructs the text, rather than the historical, cultural or social fact which has priority? The question returns us to the continental dispute between idealist * Jean Rouch: “On the Vicissitudes of the Self: the Possessed Dancer, the Magician, the Sorcerer, the Filmmaker, and the Ethnographer.” Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 5.1 (1974): 2-8.

* Jean Rouch: Les Maitres Fous. 1957. “Trinh, Reassemblage, op.cit., p.110.

Trinh Minh-ha’s Reassamblage

©5

and materialist metaphysics; we can see how Trinh’s approach is rooted in the structuralist emphasis on the primacy of the signifier: we cannot know the truth about the other, only the omnipresent mediation of signs. “I do not intend to speak about, Just speak nearby.”* Reassemblage, drawing upon mystical Chinese traditions and European post-Marxist structuralism, simultaneously points its own constructedness, and denies the validity of labeling what is seen. To claim understanding, to interpret the image is, for Trinh, inherently problematic, but it is also impossible to avoid, since processes of signification themselves are always implicit in human activity, as Lévi-Strauss repeatedly points out. Shots of various technologies, rope-making, weaving, rice-sifting, cooking, dancing seem to refer specifically to the protolinguistic quality Lévi-Strauss attributes to “sciences of the concrete.” In this context, explaining the meaning of the activities, more than being superfluous, is viewed as only a preliminary step to establishing one’s own superiority and reifying one’s hegemony over the “other,” the subject-objects viewed. Reassemblage is about representing and reflecting upon visual images and objects even less than it is about the Senegalese people; it is a metadiscourse about the act of viewing itself. The viewer, confronted with purposely disrupted images, sounds and voices, slowly begins to become conscious of him or herself piecing together arbitrary information and forming it into a meaningful system of signs. At the same time one is made aware of the presence of the filmmaker herself, whose subjectivity is made more poignant by her disjunctive absence, which replicates the position of the viewer’s self, simultaneously present and incapable of attaining a position outside of itself to understand the meaning of its own presence; Reassemblage is a reflexion upon reflexion: “Entering into the only reality of signs where I myself am a sign.” Trinh creates this critically deconstructive effect in several ways. Gratuitous jump-—cuts, excessive shifts in perspective, and an abundance of moments when images are either transparently posed or

S Jbid., p.105. Jbid., p.108

6

STEPHEN A. ZACKS

explicitly and uncomfortably voyeuristic (close-ups of breasts, disconnected body parts, faces looking curiously back at the camera) emphasize the narrator’s subjective presence. Any sense of the image being “real” in any conventional sense or of the camera replicating the natural position of the eye is interrupted. The use of sound, which in cinéma vérité was thought of as a means of capturing reality in its purest form, in Reassemblage serves to disconcert the viewer, punctuating the constructedness of the narrative, defamiliarizing the images, and subverting easy recognition and assimilation. Voices are either profoundly silent or disjointed, and always untranslated. The sounds appear in contrast to the rhythm of the activities on the screen: the rice-sifting, corn pounding, danc- © ing and jumping comes into correspondence only to move back into disconnection. The gross disconnection of sounds and voices emphasizes the narrator’s subjectivity and the viewer’s voyeurism, while the meticulous, methodical reassemblage of the sounds in a semicoherent, semi-realist manner suggests a line forming the boundary between knowledge and incomprehension. In Trinh’s epistemological narration, meaning comes ecstatically, ephemerally, corresponding to the “reality,” which is merely constituted by our preconceptions, only to again become pointedly meaningless. The paradigmatic anthropological effort toward reconciliation of the representation with the reality, of “our” understanding with “theirs,” is thus presented as not just impossibly problematic, but not even desirable. In any case the formulation presupposes adivision in the first place. In Reassemblage the constructedness of meaning is both foregrounded and elaborated, opening up space for reflection on narrative itself, which Mulvey or Derrida would say is rooted in a certain economy of pleas-

ure. Reassemblage aims for irresolution, non-closure, comforming to Irigaray’s proposition to reappropriate a properly female ethic. Most importantly, Reassemblage establishes a hermeneutic within the circle of Trinh’s own commentary that justifies the incoherence of the sounds and images and serves to explain the underlying construction. This hermeneutic meaningfully elaborates the narrator’s position, without, theoretically, rationalizing the activities of the Senegalese people or superimposing interpretations upon the world-

Trinh Minh-ha’s Reassamblage

7

view of the subjects. This hermeneutic, which I would describe as a critical deconstruction (of film, subjectivity, and anthropology) is established by suggestion instead of systematically, and further problematizes not only the analytic discourse of neocolonial anthropological film but also the narrator’s own position, insofar as, within her own process of signification, she produces a pleasurable object, gratifying herself and others for whom theory is a sort of meaningful and pleasurable narrative process. If the voice-over narration, like the sound in general, is purposively fragmented, leaving the impression of the author’s inability and unwillingness to take the place of the universal intellectual who, by criticism of existing forms and structures, points the way to truth and justice, the narration does, notwithstanding this hesitation to determine meaning, go beyond a vacant relativism or a “reassemblage” of objectivity. In this sense Reassemblage can be seen as a sort of parody of itself and a question mark; the question shifts from “what is the truth about these people, what is the true meaning of their words and activities?” to “how is truth constituted, and how is an imbalance in power inplicated in fixing meaning; how is it possible to critique the fixing of meanings without fixing a meaning; how is it possible to critique presumptions of subjectivity when the narrator is herself embedded in a certain sort of subjectivity; would one really want to abandon the construction of meaning, even if it were possible, and wouldn’t the result be a reconstruction of this presumptuous objectivity?” In other words, the film requires that we ask a series of questions, rather than confirming a sense of a latent, linear truth existing in a stable, monolithic reality. Given the explicit deconstructionist goal of Reassemblage to problematize representation, Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike’s treatment of the text in Black African Cinema, marked by something of a kneejerk disgust, is surprising in its unfairness and lack of concern for the particular mechanisms at work in the text.’ Even if one acknowledges the pre-theoretical neo-Marxist approach that he adopts, one is

thrown off guard by the vehemence with which he attacks the film:

7 Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike: Black African Cinema. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

8

STEPHEN A. ZACKS Minh—ha’s filmmaking is amateurish, bracketed by opportunism. Some of the

major flaws of her films are lack of continuity emanating from unclear structure, incorrect exposure, out-of-focus shots, bad editing, and disconcerting voice-overs, which make one wonder if anybody would have looked at these films, let alone distribute them, ifMinh—ha had made them outside of Africa. Although she argues that these flaws are deliberate (and some of her admirers agree with her), Reassemblage is structurally and aesthetically sloppy and is a failed experiment which should not be commercialized.*

There is even a trace of an almost religiously grounded revulsion directed toward Trinh’s apostate position in relation to his essentialist notions of cultural purity; Ukadike takes a typical neo-Marxist aesthetic position, presuming a common, superhistorical notion of correct representation, which ignores more than four decades of scholarship on the constitution of reality, truth, and discourse: From the beginning the major concern of African filmmakers has been to provide a more realistic image of Africa as opposed to the distorted artistic and ideological expressions of the dominant film medium...

In its absence of regard for the avant-garde technical practices (which have, notwithstanding their original obscurity, been sufficiently appropriated by music television and advertisements as to hardly remain inaccessible), Ukadike’s critique is strikingly provincial and antiquated. Even supposing Trinh’s techniques turned out to be unmotivated by the avant-garde traditions, which also saw themselves as revolting against stagnant cinematic conventions that reinforced the passivity of the viewer, the major tradition in politically committed, Marxist, and Third World cinematic traditions has been a valorization of “imperfect cinema” as a mode of defamiliarization, destabilization, and realignment with non-domineering systems of production, whereas Ukadike’s most severe technical criticism is to accuse Trinh of being sloppy. While Black African Cinema, in its encylopaedic scope and attention to particular films, builds upon and broadens the work of Manthia Diawara in African Cinema," ideologically he, like Diawara, tends to return us to the point where African film is held up as the site of a presumptuous mystico—primordial unity, one that Reassemblage, despite Ukadike’s inattention, was designed to deconstruct: * Ukadike, op.cit., p.56 ibid., p.3.

'° Manthia Diawara: African Cinema. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).

Trinh Minh-ha’s Reassamblage S a

à 9

Black African filmmakers contend that traditional ways of filmic representation — old ideas and attitudes — must give way to new ones, especially in portraying African cultures. The interest, participation, and collaboration of the people must be secured, stimulated, and maintained. Toward this goal, or nee of black African filmmakers are united by their art and ideol-

gy.

He goes on to discuss the common intentions of African filmmakers to promote “traditional” culture. Ukadike’s reliance on these unrevised notions of “traditional,” “unity,” “old,” and “new,” beyond the inconsistency of his usage and the theoretical weakness of his statements, are a disservice to African cinema, to the radicalism of

what it does. African cinema mediates the same terms which he returns to without questioning their function; the terms “old” and “new” are the stomping ground of African cinema, but what African cinema does, is problematize these codes as they have been constituted in a discourse which has paired Africa with the old. It is impossible to do justice to African texts while passing over the discontinuity that the emergence of African cinema implies with regard to the familiar modernist language of change. If the French avant-garde cinema saw itself as doing something new, we need terms to distinguish between this and the new in the context of African production; it is absolutely crucial to point out that the way that cinema is modern in an African context is different from European modernism, which was generally repressive in its historical relation to African societies. Certainly the advent of cinema in black Africa is associated with modernism, but to appreciate the break between the modernist moment for the French New Wave as opposed to Senegalese production, for instance, and also to recognize the important continuities, one has to pay attention to the way in which the positions themselves are articulated within the context of the historical account. Ukadike’s complacent disregard for the theoretical re-evaluation of the terms of intellectual debate are partially responsible for his hasty condemnation of Trinh’s work, the rejection of it out of hand as neo-

colonialist, while neglecting to consider the ways in which it sets out to thoughtfully address the very questions he raises. There is something disheartening about the tone in which he describes Trinh as “a Third World feminist of Vietnamese origin and a naturalized Ameri'' Ukadike, op.cit, p.3.

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STEPHEN A. ZACKS

can”; there is an eerie sense in which this fact is just another proof of the impurity and inauthenticity of her representation. One would like to see an appropriate use of Mudimbe’s work here, for example, insofar as he disabuses the patronizing recourse to an essential or traditional “African” and demonstrates how the “invention of tradition” serves colonialist ends; a world-view claiming authentic African representation would presuppose the return to a non-existent, pristine point at which the West and Africa were unknown to one another. As Sembéne has said in a recent interview: “As far as I am concerned, I no longer support notions of purity. Purity has become a thing of the past.”° A more thoughtful question to pose for Trinh, and one respecting the boundaries of the text itself, might have been: to what extent has Reassemblage merely produced the African as a poststructural object, and are the power relations inherent in that production an equivalent of the process by which Jean Rouch, in a different moment, constructed his own African subject between another set of parentheses? A small pathetic irony can be found in this meeting of African essentialism and postcolonial feminism, which brings out some of the value and a few of the shortcomings of both positions; Reassemblage never really resolves the conundrum opened up by its rhetoric, and the film has as an advantage over Trinh’s writings a great deal of poetry in its composition, whereas in such essays as “The Language of Nativism” the argument is confounded by what may have been intended as poetry but is experienced as stylism, and cannot distract us from the weakness of its theoretical grounding. Where the film succeeds in convincing a careful reader that there is something substantial behind the rhetoric, the equally presumptuous, but less carefully constructed, essay will fall flat. In this regard, perhaps the unfairness with which Ukadike responds to Reassemblage is balanced in some way by the heavy-handedness of Trinh’s abusive treatment of the discipline of anthropology (and of Peace Corps workers), which she nevertheless has made much good use of in her own critique of representation, especially the structuralist variety, from which her work is hardly distinguishable. This contradiction is pronounced explicitly, if " Ukadike, op.cit, p.54. '° Research in African Literatures, 26:3 (1995), p.174.

Trinh Minh-ha’s Reassamblage

11

not succinctly, in her Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality

and Feminism,"* in which she repeatedly refers to Malinowski sarcastically as “the Great Master” and redundantly issues a critique of anthropological nativist discourse initiated by anthropology itself. As she approvingly quotes Geertz, Lévi-Strauss, and Barthes (who becomes the equivalent of “The Good Male” in her attempt to reverse the codes of the patronizing discourse of White Male power), she continues to rebuke a dehistoricized “anthropology” for its complicity with colonialism as if it were a great unspoken secret, whereas Geertz and Lévi-Strauss and virtually the entire discipline had decades ago taken that history as their object. If in Reassemblage the text substantiates its position with very powerful images and assiduous editing, the writings in Woman, Native, Other bring out the superfi-

ciality of the basic premises of her critique of Western interpretation — a critique seen by the end to embrace the rather puritan idea of Third World Womanism. It is invaluable to recognize that those who claimed to be demystifying African culture through the medium of anthropology were both complicit with colonial power and unable to escape from the semiotic system in which they were grounded, thus accomplishing a merely more Sophisticated reduction and degradation of African culture. It is a triviality to call Malinowski a racist and anthropology a neocolonialist discipline without discussing the discourses of particular historical moments. More should be said regarding her moralist treatment of Malinowski’s racist statements; for all of her posturing, very little in the way of her own hermeneutic of race construction is proposed, and so her use of the word “racism” retains the sound of vain name-calling. This is surprising in one who professes to be schooled in Foucault; it

is a pity Foucault never dealt directly with the construction of racial discourse. Malinowski’s racism is important, not simply as a proof of his inauthenticity; we need to do more than condemn a Malinowski with the monologic concept of racism, without bothering to explore how racism functions in the context of discourse. Trinh’s real contribution in Reassemblage has not been in stating anything new regarding representation or postcoloniality, but in connecting avant-garde cinema to the French intellectual traditions in 4 Trinh T. Minh-ha:

Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism.

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).

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STEPHEN A. ZACKS

which it is grounded by way of her own personal relationship to world culture and by a neoMarxist extension of colonial politics to West African culture. The intellectual experience that emerges is fresh, unconfined, expansive and Other, precisely because it is impure, implicated, formed out of dynamic cultural polyglossia; simultaneously sexy, about sex and troubled by the power relationships in that equation. One could find in this disagreement between the African Male and the American Female (however métissée culturally) a perfect representation of the structural problematic itself; the boundaries are drawn between two fundamental positions in academic culture, in accordance with an emerging schism between “neoMarxist essentialism” and “postmodern theory.” It might be appropriate to place the representation of the African female body between the two positions as a sort of mock battlefront, where the arguments are the most vociferous on both sides, and where the line itself begins to absorb both “sides” into a messy, implicated problematic. Trinh’s position is already somewhat established by the preceding discussion; she is at once an outsider to African culture, an outsider in American culture, and an insider in American culture — to the extent that the function of alterity is definitive of American culture. Thus, as “Third World Woman” she can position herself as an accuser in relation to Malinowski on a pure ethical ground, while her Americanness leaves her vulnerable to the same charge of racism from Ukadike. At the same time she is in an opportune “poststructural/postmodern” position, in which an unproblematic, “indigenous” identity is disturbed, and where the postmodern theorical effect establishes another sort of subjective authority. The ethnicist position, represented by Ukadike, who himself Stands for all Africans, and for the idea of a pure, authentic represen-

tation, will further illustrate the former position. We should quote

him directly:

Interweaving exoticism with nudity in a semipornographic blend, Minh-ha

reaches Western audiences in a facile manner, a measur e which also has

sacrificed her Third World values for First World capitalistic taste. ... I have never seen so many close-ups of breasts in any other film, fifty-one shots in a forty-one minute film. Perhaps Reassemblage is admire d by its promoters for

Trinh Minh-ha’s Reassamblage

13

its pornography rather than ethnography. ... Needless to say, the reviews are based on Eurocentric assumptions rather than African sensibility,'°

One striking feature of this critique is his reprimand of Trinh in a sort of Uncle Tom of Third World Marxism polemic; she has sacrificed her Third World values, her indigenous values, for money, Ukadike insinuates. (Another pathetic irony is that one of the major common features of both sides is that there is no significant money,

no commercial interest, for avant-garde/theory-motivated American or populist/Marxist African cultural work.) However, Ukadike himself never convinces us that this pornographic representation, simply because it contains close-ups of breasts, is particularly anti-African; in fact, the idea of what constitutes an African sensibility is never considered: it is presumptuously assumed. In his pejorative use of the word “pornography” he, like Trinh when she accuses Malinowski of being a racist, acts parasitically in relation to a discourse already formed, in which the question of pornography is already articulated within a vapid, ultimately rightist construct of representation, rather than dealing with the image, how it is used, and what it signifies. Even in Reassemblage a rigorous structuralist evaluation will reveal certain flaws in Trinh’s formulation of the process of signification. One could find in Reassemblage a contradiction between her structuralist revision of the idea of representation and the poststructurally grounded critique of power relations. When Trinh makes the subjectless statement, “the habit of imposing a meaning to every sign,’* she suggests that the signifying process is invested with questions of hegemony, but the statement becomes paradoxical when made any more explicit. In a structuralist context, what would it mean to “impose a meaning to every sign,” if we understand that a sign is a thing inherently signifying, for which reason we call it a sign? One could hypothesize such an “empty sign” on the level of the signified, which refers to that part of the signifying equation that might be considered prior to a specific meaning, but already we are implicating such an object by naming it according to its dependency

15 Ukadike, op.cit., pp.55/56.

16 Trinh, Reassemblage, op.cit., p.105.

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STEPHEN A. ZACKS

on the signifier." Admittedly this paradox is a product of a particular form of analytic logic that Trinh’s more mystical influences would also reject, but if we were to challenge Trinh concerning, for instance, the image of the breast, it would be difficult to avoid conceding that the breast has an important meaning which she cannot dissociate from her own viewing eye within the “circle of looks” that constitutes meaning. Filming in Africa means for many of us Colorful images, naked breast women, exotic dances and fearful rites. The unusual. ... Nudity does not reveal The hidden It is its absence A man attending a slide show on Africa turns to his wife and says with guilt in his voice: “I have seen some pornography tonight.”"*

Her response is a typically enigmatic one, but if we suppose the idea of “imposing a meaning upon asign” to be an intelligible one, the only way we can justify it is by reference to an obscure Buddhist parable,’ or to the point at which structuralism and poststructuralism become distinct; the point at which the scientific presuppositions of structuralism and its dependence on language are questioned by, in the former case, a pluck of the nose, or in the latter, by.emphasizing the active construction of knowledge, rather than its embeddedness in something a priori. The image of the African breast does function as a sign, but one in which neither Trinh nor Ukadike remains unimplicated or pure. One of the disturbing things about viewing a breast in the context of the film itself is how it is inseparable from the conspicuous pleasure of looking, something which contemporary debate has seized on furi'’ Fredric Jameson: The Prison House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 149. '* Trinh, Reassemblage, op.cit., pp. 107-108.

I am thinking of a story about a student who is walking with his master one day, and as they pass by a lake they stop to watch a goose swimming in the water. The master asks his student, “what is it?” and the student replies, “It’s a goose,” whereupon the master harshly pinches his nose. In short, the pinch triggers the student’s awareness of the presence of the enunciating self. The suggestion is that language is somehow excessive or vain in relationship to the more fundamental experience of the self and the more fundamental reality of the object.

Trinh Minh-ha’s Reassamblage

15

ously, usually to condemn as voyeurism, for perhaps Victorian reasons. When Trinh comments on the pleasure of capturing images and constructing a narrative out of them; she does so in a way which importantly discloses the emotions of a Malinowski; she is ambivalent, experiencing first fascination and excitment at the images she is capturing, and then revulsion, if not with the African subject, then with the system of signs and how it has implicated her as colonist: “Watching her through the lens. I look at her becoming me becoming mine.”” Ukadike too, in calling the image pornographic reveals his discomfort with the image, something natural rendered violently, defamiliarized, removed from its native context. His revulsion is also instructive, because what happens in the process is violent to the African sensibility (if we can rhetorically accept his use of the phrase), for which “nakedness” is not experienced as it is in the West (to round out the structural opposition). It would not be surprising if the image were generally considered offensive in its native context, in the same way, Trinh and Ukadike would agree, Rouch’s presentation of the foaming Maitres Fous is offensive, the offensiveness defines the boundary between the different cultural conceptions: in the

structural problematic this offensiveness illustrates difference itself, the real subject of Reassemblage. Although the dispute between “postmodern” and “ethnic” scholarship has been exaggerated both by posturing and by zero sum departmental economics, it is important to recognize that quite a few scholars (Henry Louis Gates, Anthony Appiah, V.Y. Mudimbe, Kenneth Harrow, Edward Said, Julianne Burton, Michele Wallace, Isaac Julien, Tricia Rose, Stuart Hall, Cornel West, to name a few) have been moving toward a compromise between these supposedly opposed positions, even those who formerly seemed hostile to the demands of continental theory on ethnic scholarship, or of ethnic scholarship on continental theory, including Ukadike and Diawara, who have both made efforts to use postmodern theory to some extent, however unelaborated or schematic the efforts sometimes seem. It is probably unnecessary to recall what is at stake in the broader intellectual and political climate: the ability to influence public discourse, to

formulate intelligent and tenable positions, and to institute power re20 Trinh, Reassemblage, op.cit., p.108.

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STEPHEN A. ZACKS

lations capable of standing up to the demands of an often hegemonic world culture that threatens to level intellectual debate. Reassemblage does not present a correct representation of African culture. The representation is neither value neutral, nor, unlike Ukadike’s critique, apparently moralistic. The text is marked by a rejection of facile classifications, dualistic thought, and in particular typical dichotomies in which an unproblematic distinction is maintained between the subject/object, viewer/viewed, traditional/modern, insider/outsider. Most prolific perhaps, are the silences, the moments of darkness, which speak to the lack of necessity to speak, or maybe the necessity not to speak. The movie is simultaneously anti-didactic, refusing to make claims and criticising those who do (ie. Peace Corps _ volunteers, anthropologists, filmmakers), and dogmatic to the extent that explicit (defamiliarizing, contextually new) manipulation replaces coercions inherent in convention. The result is an intellectual experiment which is striking, severe, and prolific. In the end Reassemblage is much more about cinematic language and its capacity to function in the same way as anthropological discourse (or any other discourse for that matter) so as to define and confine, than it is about the people themselves. Is this construction objectifying? Certainly. Reassemblage is no less alienating than traditional forms of representation, since neither those viewed nor the audience control the construction of meaning. One is tempted to say that, to the extent that we recognize that “the people” are not the real subjects of the film, they fail to become signified in any totalizing way, but perhaps the terms themselves and our way of viewing have totalized them in advance. In any case, the true novelty of Reassemblage lies in the Way it uses film to create the deconstructionist narrative illusion that interpretation is being wrenched from all of the expert and popular discourses

in which it has been formed and thrust upon a newly enlightened

audience, placed in the center of contemporary intellectual debate, although we are no longer naive enough to believe that the terms of this latest new hermeneutic moment haven’t already situated us in the exact same structural problematic of narrative, performing that dangerous and invaluable service of gratifying us by telling us what we already know.

SUZANNE H. MACRAE

The Mature and Older Women of African Film “Everyone is in the hands of their [sic] mother.” Postscript of Ta Dona

Mature matrons and elderly women are frequently and eloquently presented in films produced in sub-Saharan Africa during the last thirty years. These films sharply focus on the struggle of African women to re-define their identity in the context of global turmoil in contemporary African culture. Because of their repertoire of experience and their relative freedom from the cycle of pregnancy and child rearing, mature and older women have developed greater personal autonomy and social sophistication than their younger counterparts. The painful tension between tradition and change affects these women dramatically because they, more than their younger sisters, are wedged between old and new social expectations. These women’s lives mirror the tumult and the challenge of contemporary Africa. I emphasize representative patterns in the characterization of women while acknowledging that there are exceptions which do not conform. Rather than discussing all the relevant examples extensively, I concentrate on the richer, more complex illustrations drawn from these mostly recent films made in western, central, and southern Africa: | Senegal: Mali:

_ Burkina Faso: Zaire:

Xala (dir. Sembène, 1974); Guelwaar (dir. Sembène, 1993); Touki Bouki (dir. Mambéty, 1973), Hyenas (dir. Mambéty, 1992) Yeelen (dir. Cissé, 1987); Finzan (dir. Sissoko,1989 ); Ta Dona (dir. Drabo, 1991) Yaaba (dir. Ouédraogo, 1989) La Vie est Belle (dir. Mweze and Lamy, 1987)

With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

SUZANNE H. MACRAE

18 Cameroon:

Quartier Mozart (dir. Bekolo, 1992)

Zimbabwe:

Neria (dir. Mawuru, 1992)

South Africa: Madagascar:

Mapantsula (dir. Schmitz, 1988) Angano ... Angano (dir. Paes and Blanc-Paes, 1989)

The cinematic portraits of women reflect African conventions about body types and distinguish among young, middle-aged, and elderly women. These images also pene social assumptions about

the distinct functions of the “three ages” of women. Nubile women tend to be svelte with a classic facial beauty compatible with western or — if you will — universal standards (eg., Kabibi in La Vie, Attu in Yeelen, and the bride in Xala). Young women tend to be tall and wear form-fitting clothes, either western orAfrican, to complement their willowy bodies. Their appearance radiates youthful beauty and sexual vitality rather than fecundity. In contrast, the typical matron is heavier, more robust, and wears African clothing with matching head ties. Loose garments accommodate her amplitude. Matronly faces conform to the African preference for large features (eg., Mamu and Mama Dingari in La Vie, Sytsalla in Quartier, the bride’s mother and the second wife in Xala). Their figures express the African association of fertility with fleshly magnitude. These women emanate the prosperity and confidence attained through their increased power and status in the family. Some matrons gain independence and wealth from losing a mate (whether to death, desertion, or divorce is not specified). By independently brokering advantageous matches for their marriageable daughters these women accrue profit and prestige for themselves and often maintain their control over these daughters. Elderl are thin, almost emaciated, with sparse hair and wrinkled Eire etched by years of experience. They wear rough, homemade garments and subsist in rural poverty. They live alone or at least without husbands. They have ceased to be sexual objects or potential mothers and can no longer perform hard labor. Their inability to fulfill such crucial female roles places them in social limbo with paradoxical consequences. On the one hand, they may be respected for their special powers such as arcane knowledge of fetishes, proficiency in remedies for illness and injury, and insight into human be-

Mature and Older Women of African Film

19

havior. But, on the other hand, they may evoke social ostracism or even persecution as dangerous witches, charges that continue to vex African societies today.’

Such double-edged stereotypes powerfully inform the cinematic

roles of elderly women. Nianancoro’s mother in [Yeelen\ exemplifies the virtuous, wise crone who comprehends the secret Bambara knowledge and family history which hold the key to her son’s fate. She has become a refugee and exile to protect him against his violent father and to safeguard the powerful fetishes that Nianancoro requires to complete his mission. Although she cannot act directly against her evil husband, still she manages alone to rear a strong and ethical hero. To aid him in his quest, she sacrifices to the water goddess. She stands waist deep and bare breasted in a reedy lake, displaying a natural dignity untarnished by sexual self-consciousness. Cissé’s choice for this role of an 83-year-old woman — much too old to be the mother of a young man about twenty — indicates that he intends her to be an icon of wisdom rather than arealistic portrait of a biological mother. Her emaciated body displays the triumph of spirit over flesh. Yaaba@? (gr. ~) illustrates the destructive attitude toward older women. An elderly crone lives in poverty and isolation from other people. She has no family and is vilified and shunned by the village adults, who deem her a dangerous witch responsible for all misfortunes. The film condemns such cruelty and emphasizes the affection between two powerless groups within rural society — the very old and the very young — who band together against the prejudice and hostility of the other villagers. Two children befriend Yaaba, bring her needed food, and seek her guidance and affection. In return Yaaba diagnoses the girl’s deadly tetanus and obtains special medicine to save her life. Yaaba also teaches the children compassion and tolerance for people who, like her, do not conform to rigid, moralistic community values. These examples indicate that even the elderly women respected for their special knowledge do not “fit” the conventional roles for ' Bob Drogin: “S[outh] Africans Revive Burning of Witches.” Los Angeles Times, Reprinted in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock), 1 January 1995: A19, A22. ? Yaaba. Dir. Idrissa Ouédraogo. 1989.

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women and pay the price of social isolation, which could develop into alienation or even persecution. Life is problematic even for the matrons who have spouses and adhere to the traditional female roles — childbearing, domestic labor,

and obedience to the husband. They pay a price for their conformity particularly when polygamous marriages exist and the succeeding wife becomes the “trophy” spouse. In Xala El Hadji’s first wife Adja, a traditional woman who wears the old fashioned Muslim robes, remains at home to care for her children and never complains about her husband’s polygamy even when he neglects her in pursuit of a third, very young bride. Adja is not even aggressive like the other wives in requesting money. She exerts only passive resistance to the second wife, Oumi: Adja insists that Oumi must come to greet her, a prerogative of the first wife. And she alone stands by her husband in his financial and professional ruin. The film takes an ambivalent view of Adja — respect for her loyalty and dignity but not for her passive suffering, which Sembéne implies results from destructive Islamic custom.

Mad Dog’s first wife, Sytsalla, in Quartier Mozart does not openly rebel when her husband takes a younger second wife, Kongassa, but Sytsalla competes with her rival by flaunting her superior cooking, and she commandeers the television set for her room. The director plays this domestic situation for comedy, yet the conflict darkens

when Mad Dog threatens to shoot Sytsalla and then evicts her bodily from the house. She is separated from her children and forced to sell food in the market to make a living. Guelwaar’s wife in Guelwaar* combats a different rival — her husband’s political activism — for which she pays a heavy emotional and financial price. He does not support his family, and they live on the earnings of the daughter, who is forced into prostitution. He spends his time campaigning against Senegal’s corrupt acceptance of western food aid. The wife complains bitterly to Guelwaar throughout the marriage, and, after he dies, she addresses her anger to his burial suit

> Guelwaar. Dir. Ousmane Sembéne. Domireew, Galatee Film; FR3 Film Production; Channel IV; Westdeutscher Rundfunk, 1993.

Mature and Older Women of African Film

21

laid out on the bed. The empty clothes symbolize Guelwaar’s deafness to her feelings and his default of domestic responsibility. Adherence to customs regarding the remarriage of widows inflicts great cruelty on Nanyuma in the fiercely feminist Finzan.‘ Rejoicing in her new freedom from a brutal, unloved husband, she must then fend off her foolish brother-in-law Bala’s obsessive love for her. The chief, most of the village women, and even her own relatives refuse to support her objection to him, citing the custom that the dead hus-

band’s brother must assume legal responsibility for the widow. Nanyuma is kidnapped, beaten, tied up, and brought by force to submit to the marriage. But she refuses any sexual relationship with Bala and threatens him with a knife. At the end of the film she leaves the village for an uncertain life away from the oppression she has experienced, asserting the feminist credo of Finzan that the future of Africa depends on justice for women. In contrast to victims such as these, some mature women aggressively seek status and money. Matrons use their privilege as mothers of nubile daughters to achieve status through advantageous, usually polygamous matches. Both Kabibi’s mother in La Vie and the mother of the young bride in Xala’ “sell” their daughters to rich, powerful older men without regard for the prospect of marital harmony. These mothers reap a harvest of gifts and public adulation by praise singers. Kabibi’s mother, a successful and grasping landlady, dictates the rules governing her mini-fiefdom and constantly raises rents for her impoverished tenants. Although these women must support themselves and could justify their allegiance to traditional practices, the films condemn their greed at the expense of others and their indifference to the personal happiness of their daughters. The second wives of El Hadji in Xala and Mad Dog in Quartier Mozart compete with the first wives for sexual access to the hus-

bands and/or control of domestic affairs. Both women are westernized in dress and manner and psychologically dominate their husbands by heaping on them alitany of abuse and demand. To support “ Finzan: A Dance for the Heroes. Dir. Cheick Oumar Sissoko. 1989. ° La Vie est Belle. Dir. Ngangura Mweze and Bernard Lamy. Lamy Films, 1987. Xala. Dir. Ousmane Sembéne. Film Domireew; Societé nationale cinémaphotographique, 1974.

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SUZANNE H. MACRAE

her taste in clothes and life style, El Hadji’s wife Oumi drains him like an inexhaustible bank. Money seems the only source of power he retains in this marriage, and he substitutes it for personal responsibility. But neither marriage succeeds as both second wives desert their husbands when they lose their position and income. These women have adopted the purely economic rationale for marriage which custom has taught them. The most comic and ruthless female dominance is exercised by Mamu, the wife of Nvuandu in La Vie. She counters her husband’s penchant for secondary school girls and his taunts about her infertility with constant verbal insults and commands. In addition, she belongs to a sorority of liberated matrons who band together to drink, party with handsome young men, and generally flaunt their insolent disregard for their spouses. Mamu has the advantages of a wealthy husband, a luxurious house, a car with chauffeur, her own lucrative

textile business, and complete freedom; she will brook no rivals. She thwarts her husband’s second marriage to a young girl by aiding the girl’s access to her truelove, a penniless musician who works as Mamu’s house servant. Yet these quarreling spouses eventually reconcile and affirm their underlying love for each other. Mamu repents of her participation in the women’s group and asks his forgiveness; Nvuandu gives up his young bride and presumably terminates his quest for schoolgirls. The film’s closure conforms to the comic requirement that the proper couples be matched in happy unions and that excessive behavior by all parties be purged. La Vie could be termed an urban fairy tale, but its dark tones undercut its optimistic title. Even though some films like Xala, Quartier Mozart, and La Vie est Belle employ shrewish or manipulative wives as instruments of satire against husbands or as instigators of comic disorder to upset

conventional male control, there is more at stake than fulfillment of a

genre. The satire and comedy arise from sexual and economic inequality in real life, and the films reflect at least uneasiness and confusion about male-female relationships and at most a criticism of male dominance.

Mature and Older Women of African Film e h cal a,

23

Many films indicate a serious moral/ethical dimension in women’s

defiance of social rules. Kabibi in La Vie submits to her mother’s arranged but loveless marriage but continues to rendezvous with her lover, and, when the husband violently curtails her freedom, leaves him and his dazzling bribery gifts. Mad Dog’s second wife Kongassa responds to his physical abuse of her and of his children by leaving him. Female rebellion strikes not only at the domestic injustices but also at larger social and global perversions of justice. Nianancoro’s mother in Yeelen loses everything but her life and her son as she flees her vicious and politically powerful husband. She invests her energy in rearing a child who will destroy his father’s corrupt male secret society and restore ethical Bambara governance. An elderly woman named Ambaraziy in Angano...Angano,’ the Malagasy documentary about oral tradition, objects when her brother rationalizes the inequity for women in customary inheritance law. The folktale he tells concerning a shiftless husband with a hardworking wife justifies his two-thirds share and her one-third by invoking the difference in how much weight each could carry, men using a shoulder pole and women a basket on the head. Ambaraziy laughs but says that, if she had been in the story, she would have used a pole. He retorts that God ordered each sex to carry in its traditional way. She concludes that “We’ve been had.” Ambaraziy’s open Opposition to custom is surprising and significant in several respects: she attacks not just a male but her brother, and she undermines the very foundation of Malagasy culture — the social and religious authority of oral tradition. In addition, her objection is not private but recorded on film for a public audience. Traditions concerning widows, particularly in rural areas, preclude justice for the women. In Neria,’ when Neria’s husband dies, her brother-in-law, Phineas, and her mother-in-law expect Neria to leave her city job and come home to rejoin the rural relatives, marry Phineas, and relinquish control of her life, children, and property. Rural

° Angano...Angano. Dir. César Paes, Laterit Productions, 1989.

’ Neria. Dir. Godwin Mawuru. Media for Development Trust, 1992.

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SUZANNE H. MACRAE

law considers women as tied to the husband’s ancestral lands and family and as helpless without male guardianship. Neria represents the “new” independent and employed African woman who must use European, urban law to regain her rights. Neria’s mother-in-law comes to understand through this turmoil that she has perverted rather than fulfilled traditional custom, and she then supports Neria’s choice to remain a widow living in the city. Although this film suffers from a rather contrived “happy” ending and fits more comfortably in the category of educational/propagandistic rather than artistic film, its very didacticism qualifies it as a barometer of significant social issues. Personal tragedy radicalizes a Soweto mother in Mapantsula® When her son Sam dies in police custody after being arrested at a political demonstration, she is no longer just an ordinary old woman trying to survive the daily hardships of poverty and corrupt township government. She marches in the vanguard of the student protests and falls a martyr to the police tear gas and gunfire assault. Her courage inspires even aselfish street hoodlum and police informer to refuse further cooperation with injustice. Using the mode of social realism to document women’s rights issues, African films forge a powerful social instrument to empower women in a more effective way than expository vehicles of persuasion. The emotionally compelling stories and characters of the films implicitly urge women to take responsibility for their own lives and to reject destructive traditions. But they refuse to gloss over or sentimentalize the price women may pay for their defiance of convention. Finzan expresses its message with explicit militance, concluding with these words of the persecuted Nanyuma as she leaves her village in search of a new life: The world comes from our wombs. It mistreats us. We give life, and we’re not allowed to live. We produce the food crops, and others eat without us. We create wealth, and it is used against us. We women are like birds with no branch to perch on. There’s no hope. All that’s left is we must stand up and tie our belts. The progress of our society is linked to our emancipation.

* Mapantsula. Dir. Oliver Schmitz, Haverbeam and David Hannay, 1988.

Mature and Older Women of African Film

25

But there is another, rarer dimension in the cinematic portraits of older women which endows them with a mythic, sometimes archetypal, resonance that transcends ordinary social reality. Filmmakers such as Cissé, Drabo, and Bekolo create larger than life characters by exploiting the inherent surrealism of the film medium with its dreamlike communication. They tap unconscious psychic resources to give their films a profound resonance. Their use of gesture and body language, ritualized actions, symbolic visual motifs, composition/rhythm of shots, and mise-en-scène radiates mythic energy. These directors’ mythic characters are exclusively older women. The two most elderly — Nianancoro’s mother in Yeelen and Mother

Coumba in Ta Dona’ are similar in significant ways. Both live in exile from their people and are so old and physically depleted that they exist on the cusp between life and death. Their special knowledge surpasses rational understanding and ordinary experience. Yet the two women are also individualized. Nianancoro’s mother is primarily an icon of pious, sacrificial motherhood. Numinous imagery animates powerful sequences such as her oblation to the goddess of waters. As she stands waist-deep in the river, she becomes a creature half flesh and half liquid. The flowing streams of milk she pours on her head consecrate her upper body, and unite the devotee with the deity. The milk sacrifice mimics both the literal and metaphoric nurturing the mother has provided her son. The shots of her lifting bowls high above her head while intoning her prayer are slow, repetitive, and ceremonial. The empty bowls move on the water seemingly by their own power and nestle against the reeds. This imagery suggests the attempt by Moses’s mother to save her son’s life by committing him to the Egyptian river. A more complex and explicitly mystical woman, the elderly healer Mother Coumba, appears in Ta Dona . She lies solitary and dying in the desolate cliff area of Mali where sacred grave niches hold the bodies of ancestors. Magic fetishes — including female fertility objects — adorn her dwelling. She possesses lost, secret Bambara knowledge, the seventh canari, a sovereign remedy for childbirth and ° Yeelen. Dir. Souleymane Cissé. Cissé Films. American distr. Cinemon, 1987. Ta Dona. Dir. Adama Drabo. Kora Films and C. N. P. C-Mali, 1991.

26

associated

SUZANNE

conditions.

Mother

Coumba

remains

H. MACRAE

alive, much

like

Simeon in the New Testament, only until Sidy, the one destined to receive her knowledge, arrives. Mother Coumba, an archetypal wise crone, is associated with paradoxical symbolism. Her medicine, properly used, saves lives but is lethal in the wrong dosage. The actual medicine is never visualized and resides in a bottomless jar that magically transforms into a complete jar as Sidy handles it. Coumba’s title is ironic in that she, a midwife who has delivered 119 babies, has no children of her own.

She is an outsider who has not fulfilled the most basic female function — to give birth — but nevertheless attains occult knowledge through direct female transmission from her grandmother. Through Mother Coumba, Drabo honors elderly women as guardians of life’s most profound mystery. A different sexual myth animates Bekolo’s erotic comedy Quartier

Mozart, which invests several older female characters with preternatural powers." The sorceress Mama Thecla, a gender-bending African version of the femme fatale, teaches her lore to a young recruit, a pubescent schoolgirl called Queen of the ’Hood, introducing her to spooky scenes of witchcraft rituals and a mysterious yellow car with

the power to kill and to transmogrify people. Since the Queen’s main interest is prying into the sexual secrets of the neighborhood, Mama Thecla enables her to peer through walls. She then transforms Queen into the local stud My Guy, intent on seducing Saturday, the most eligible virgin in the neighborhood. Queen believes that she will gain control over her budding sexuality and evade male exploitation by discovering firsthand what young men are like. Mama Thecla transplants herself into the male body of Panka, who fractures masculine pride by shrinking men’s genitals with a simple handshake. After the dynamic duo of sorcerer and apprentice disrupts life in the whole neighborhood, the Queen concludes that she will have sex only with a man who loves her. Bekolo includes in the film three hefty matrons wearing the same style African dress and head wrap who regularly meet in the town '° Quartier Mozart. Dir. Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Kola Case, 1992.

Mature and Older Women of African Film EE

27

Square to obtain water. The ritual appearances of these women, like those of the witches in Macbeth, punctuate important episodes in the film. The trio knows everything that goes on in their community and gleefully gossip about the latest sexual humiliation Mama Thecla has wreaked on their neighbors. Like a Greek chorus they articulate the point of view of the community at large. As they display the African penchant for laughing at pain and disorder, they resemble domesticated Olympians, validating the superiority of mature women by mocking the folly of men and younger females. The special powers of older women administer Bekolo’s dark sexual comedy. The most sustained and powerful use of myth occurs in Djibril Diop Mambéty’s mordant satires of contemporary life in Senegal and Senegalese adulation of colonial culture. His surrealistic cinematic style creates a hyper-reality in which imagination and fantasy permeate mundane reality. Mambéty’s use of strange and ambiguous montage juxtaposes symbolic elements with narration and creates symbolic parallels through repeated visual motifs. In Touki Bouki and Hyenas" he characterizes older women as agents of divine vengeance. We first see Aunt Oumi in Touki Bouki as a butcher quietly and expertly slitting the throat of a sheep, then as a raging Fury or sorceress. With ceremonial gestures — arms upraised and knife brandished in one hand — she stands in the middle of the road imprecating the protagonist Mory for defaulting on his debts to her. In retrospect, the earlier scene of sheep killing is colored by the symbolism of the later scene, taking on implications of ritual sacrifice rather than merely commercial butchering. We wonder if she would slit Mory’s throat with the same dispatch as the sheep’s and if her curses would be efficacious. Oumi’s mythical power is reiterated in a third scene where she appears as a traditional praise singer in Mory’s fantasy of his own apotheosis. Instead of abuse she now confers honor and status on him through her ritually powerful language and gesture. Employing the same posture she used to curse, she raises her arms to draw spiritual "' Touki Bouki. Dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty. Cinegrit, 1973. Hyenas. Dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty. ADR Productions, Thelma Films AG, Maag Daan, MK2 Productions S. A., 1992.

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H. MACRAE

power down to an earthly being. Mory (like Mambéty himself) recognizes Oumi’s numinous, threatening energy but egotistically subverts it in his imagination to his own benefit. Mambéty refines and perfects his use of mythical female characters in Hyenas, an adaptation of Friedrich Dirrenmatt’s play The Visit. In her youth the main character, Ramatou, rejected by her lover Dramen Drahmeh in favor of a rich fianceé, was expelled in shame from the village of Colobane because of her pregnancy. Dramen hired perjured witnesses who enabled him to evade legal responsibility for his paternity. Many years later Ramatou, now fabulously rich and powerful, returns to wreak vengeance on him and the town that drove her into prostitution. She offers the impoverished townspeople huge ~ sums of money if they kill her former lover, now a respected man and mayor-elect of Colobane. She succeeds in turning the people’s greed into self-righteous conviction, exposing the entire town as a metaphoric brothel. Mambéty conceives of Ramatou as a preternatural being belonging to a different order than normal people. Uniformed marching drummers proclaim her arrival. Tall, stern, dressed in old fashioned yet elegant robes and head-dress of stark white or black, she keeps everything but her face covered. Old yet timeless, she radiates cold serenity. Ramatou carries herself regally, holding court, moving and speaking slowly, her every word and gesture expressing the imperative mood. She dispenses money as if it were common as paper. The townspeople convey their obeisance by bows, supplication, and extravagant praise. Ramatou dominates each scene where she appears; the eye lines of other people all fix on her. She surveys the townspeople in the square

from her throne-like chair in an upper story niche that frames her and

her attendants like a formal portrait of royalty. Exalting her status, the camera takes the point of view of her subjects by shooti ng her from below. A strange, surreal retinue accompanies her: an Asian woman in modern police uniform with handcuffs on her belt; three beautiful, stylish young African women with elaborate, colorful dresses, jewels,

and coiffures; a valet (played by Mambéty) in a black velvet suit and

hat, supporting his crippled leg with a crutch.

Mature and Older Women of African Film

29

Ramatou also is handicapped by an artificial leg and arm, the fruit of a plane crash which killed the other passengers. She has symbolically returned from the dead as an alien and created artifice. Her anomalous appearance is emblematic of her inner self. Suffering and vengeance have wrung from her the last ounce of pity or reflection. She has become retribution itself, one of the Erinyes, ineluctably exposing and punishing hidden sin. As an agent of fate, she foresees and orchestrates each event and emotion, smiling with bitter satisfaction as she observes the townspeople prostitute themselves for her money and rationalize the murder of their most popular citizen as an act of dispassionate justice. Ramatou provokes complex and paradoxical emotions: she is strong and pitiable, magnificent and horrifying, admirable and ruthless.

As the film proceeds, we sense that she still loves her betrayer and that in executing his demise, she both punishes and saves him. Drahmen changes significantly during the film. Having witnessed the treachery and self-righteousness of his fellow citizens and having af-

firmed his own guilt and cowardice, Drahmen now rekindles his buried love for Ramatou. He not only accepts his inevitable death but even yearns for it, expressing his relief and gratitude that his “meaningless life” will soon terminate. Mambéty creates Dramen as a tragically appealing character who is spiritually revitalized by his ordeal. His regeneration may have been integral to Ramatou’s agendum. At an underground desert bunker that resembles a tomb she waits for his death. She will bury him on her island guarded by the god of the sea where she alone will possess him. Ramatou eagerly antici-

pates her own imminent death, which will unite the two forever. Mambéty, by enriching with mythic dimensions what was merely a vengeful women in Dirrenmatt’s play, has fashioned one of the supreme creations of African film. But does Ramatou have any social significance for Africa?

Important scholars of African film like Teshome Gabriel, Manthia Diawara, and perhaps even Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike might say

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SUZANNE H. MACRAE

that she does not.’? They believe that the mission of African directors is defined more or less in terms of cultural activism: to undermine the colonial mindset, to raise African consciousness about its traditional culture, and to revolutionize African society.

Certainly most of the African directors present characters that exemplify urgent social and ethical problems for women — unhappy arranged marriages, polygamy, poverty, heavy domestic responsibility, deprivation of legal rights (especially for widows), physical brutality, and the indignity of second- class status. They imply that conditions for women are especially rigid and harsh in rural society but more open to change in cities. The films champion the cause of justice for women and reform of traditional sex roles. Ramatou seems not to fit this paradigm. Even though she has been victimized by male treachery and self-righteous moralism, she has triumphed with great worldly success; furthermore, she deals with her pain in a very old fashioned and some might judge evil way — more like Medea than Ibsen’s Nora. What can a contemporary African audience learn from her? The question is a subtle one. Perhaps the criteria for judging the worth of African film should include great art with or without an activist social agenda. The mythic power of the story and characters of Hyenas, its fable of greed, revenge, love, and salvation touches the unconscious as well

as the conscious mind of its audience. We might find there most pro-

found instruction in the ultimate source of social injustice — the labyrinthine human heart. Surely there is room in the cinematic pantheon for seductive, magnificent characters such as Ramatou. Perhaps with older women we can have it all.

'? Manthia Diawara: African Cinema: Politics and Culture. (Bloomi ngton: Indiana University Press, 1992); Teshome Gabriel: Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetics of Liberation. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1982); Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike: Black African Cinema. (Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1994).

BETI ELLERSON

The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy: Conflicting Paradigms in the Representation of Women in African Film As a medium of culture, the body delineates its use in daily life: in the ways one occupies space, the culturally specific ways that one’s body is carried, moved, and positioned, and in the ways it is adorned. Corporeal practices are conditioned by culture, social situations, and the environment, and are defined within those contexts. How then are

the body and corporeal practices interpreted and read in African cinema? How do cinematic codes portray or betray cultural codes of corporeal practices and idioms within and outside African contexts? These are theoretical questions that are posed within the critical discourse that has developed in African cinema — a discourse emerging outside of dominant film theory and criticism, and going beyond mainstream feminist analysis of film and the extensive Euro- focused 1{ CAGE exploration of the female body. In many ways it has been in quotidian activities and milieux that

From the confrontation of African filmmakers with the dilemmas of westernization, post-, and neo-colonialism, have come the limages— of the westernized African woman, the prostitute, and the bourgeois

wife.|These characters have been used at times as metaphors for the With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

A

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BETI ELLERSON

corruptive force of colonialist or European influences, and the concomitant spread of westernization; as symbols of conflict between African and European cultures; and of generational differences and tensions. ‘With the rise of African women

in westernized contexts,

images have evolved to represent the “new African woman,” the “modern. African woman,” as well as the double-faced African woman confronting the dichotomous A frican/western paradigm.’| One of the paradoxes of placing Africa within the Euro-defined continuum of tradition and modernity is that African cultures function simultaneously in both. African filmmakers have effectively interpreted this simultaneity in their use of metaphor, juxtaposition,

satire, and ridicule. The transformation of African womanhood faced with the force of European aesthetic impositions has resulted in a

duality within African femininity.

Ousmane Sembén Xalae’s provides an interesting study of both the juxtaposition of different African women in the dichotomy of Af|rican and western, and the representational use of the female body as

(metaphor for changé> It is perhaps to this film that the contrast between the “westernized and “traditional” {African woman is most often referred while the specific scene most representative of this dichotomy is that of the co-wives Awa and Oumi at the wedding of their husband and his third wife. When seated inside the bride’s house, Awa, the first wife, is in the left half of the frame, dressed in

we

us

' Various role-types have emerged, such as the African career woman, seen in the secretary and teacher in Xala (Ousmane Sembène, 1974) and Sango Malo (Bassek Ba Kobhio, 1992); and the student; increasingly visible as a symbol of change, and sign of tension between westernization and African conventional lifestyles and practices, and of generational conflicts in films such as Xala, Touki Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambety, 1973) Djeli (Kramo-Lanciné Fadika, 1981), Finye (Souleymane Cissé, 1982), Diankha-bi (Mahama Traoré, 1969), Saikati (Anne Mungai, 1993) and Love Brewed in an African Pot (Kwaw Ansah, 1980). Co-wives within the institution of polygamy and the young woman as sexual interest of the “big man” have also been portrayed. They have often been used to challenge the African male bourgeoisie and their corrosive abuses of power in films such as Finye, Xala, Bal Poussière (Henri Duparc, 1988), La Vie est belle ae (Ngangura Mweze and Bénoît Lamy, 1987) and Saaraba (Amadou Saalum Seck, 1988). The prostitute has been employed metaphorically to symbolize the manner in which Africa has prostituted itself to the west or has been corrupted. Ousmane Sembène’s Guelwaar (1993) employs the prostitute character in juxtaposition with internationa l aid, while Djibril Diop Mambety constructs a superb presentation of greed in Hyénes (1992). 3

The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy

33

head covering and an elegant white boubou, with a chewing stick in her mouth. Oumi, the second wife, is on the right half of the frame, dressed in a black sleeveless sheer dress, wearing a wig and sunglasses. The contrast is both stunning and mocking. In this one scene, (Sembéne addresses and ridicules a range of issues; polygamy, coespousal rivalry and the power between the wives, the effects of colonialism and westernization, and the duality in notions of femininity and womanhood] Sembène mockingly depicts a similar scene of westernized decadence in Mandabi (1968). While sitting with Dieng, the protagonist, the wife of Mbaye, Dieng’s nephew, is wearing sunglasses, coiffed in a western style wig and wearing a short skirt while painting her toenails. | Positioning the first two wives in Xala on opposing ends, one side ‘a“traditional” woman and the other a caricature of westernization, Sembène engages a reading of the polarity of femininities. He con|structs a framework within which to read the other three women of |the film: the virgin bride, who is the third wife; the student, El Hadj’s |daughter, who is the Africa-centered new African woman; and the secretary. In the beginning sequence of Touki Bouki, Mambety presents an ‘excellent rendition of contrasting femininity and corporeal practices— \in the quotidian activities of Senegalese women, using Anta, the female protagonist and a student at the University of Dakar, as an oppositional figure. The opening scene portrays her writing while seated in a chair at a table. She has her short hair uncovered and is dressed in pants and a jacket. In stark contrast, Anta’s mother, who appears in the following scene, is seated on a low stool behind a table that displays various food staples. Dressed in a boubou, her hair covered with a mouchoir, she is cleaning her teeth with a chewing stick. As the camera remains fixed on her image, women in flowing boubous | walk in and out of the frame.|The contrasting corporeal practices and _ presentations of femininity are established within two differing social _ contexts. Anta is a student at the university, a status that has been created outside of traditional African social conventions. As a result, she is allowed to be odd and defiant of traditions in much the same way as the student character Rama (played by the same actor,

34

BETI ELLERSON

Myriam Niang) in Xala2 In one of the closing sequences of Touki Bouki, Anta is on her lover’s motorbike, visually echoing his image riding the motorbike in a previous scene. The closing sequence portrays Anta waiting to depart on the “Ancerville,’ a ship bound for France. In her “western” frocks, with pink hat, sunglasses and pants suit she is in stunning contrast to the “rebel” student of the opening

scene. In Saikati, Mungai constructs her eponymous student. protagonist within a traditional Maasai setting. Though she is a student and speaks English, she continues to live within the conventions of the Maasai. It is during her move to Nairobi that she changes. (The spectator witnesses this transformation from Maasai to westernized woman as the film details her new clothing, her change of make-up from face paint to lipstick, and her change of hairstyle from beaded headdress to wig. However, unlike other films in which the “westernized African woman” is shown to eagerly embrace her new role, in Saikati Saikati expresses her discomfort with European aesthetics and her preference for Maasai dress! The film ends with her choosing to return to her Maasai village, changing to her Maasai attire before reaching her home. Ousmane Sembéne’s La Noire de... (1966) one of the rare interpretations of inter-racial, intra-gender tensions between women, dramatizes the relationship between an African domestic worker and her European female employer. While in Dakar, Diouana, the protagonist, comes to work in Senegalese attire, coiffed in a popular African hairstyle. When she accompanies her employers on vacation, she arrives in France in a polka-dot dress with a scarf around her head. Her attire becomes increasingly westernized, as though she is attempting to offset her humiliation as a domestic. While doing her tasks around the house she appears to be overly dressed with wig, ear-rings, necklace, high-heel shoes, and a French-style dress. It is at this point that Madame puts an apron around her waist. Though the clothes that Diouana wears are old ones, given to her by Madame and establishing a * Rama reveals the freedom of African women to choose their appearance: she is coiffed variously in a close-cropped hairstyle as well as in tresses; and she dresses in a boubou, modish European-style pants and top, or African ensemble.

The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy

sh 35

visual neutrality between them, the apron becomes the distinguishing marker of Madame’s authority and Diouana’s subordination. Later the| French woman becomes more and more uncomfortable with Diouana’s dress and her resistance to working as a maid. She shouts at her: “Diouana take off those shoes, don’t forget that you are a maid.” She desperately seeks to maintain the signals of difference between them in terms of status, class, and race. In Senegal the visual delineation between them is not as important. The employer/maid relationship is clear, and the dominance is understood and automatically maintained. In France the difference is more diffused. \Diouana’ s blackness, though a western marker of inferiority, is not sufficient to signify her réle and purpose in the household. Other visual codes are needed, such as the apron. | While the differences between the “westernized” African woman and the “traditional” woman are illustrated by dress and adornment, the contrasts are often depicted spatially, as can be seen in how the p 3 {body is used. This includes women sitting on low stools and on the ground rather than sitting on western-style furniture; eating, napping, washing, and cooking and performing daily activities outdoors rather than in the confines of the interior of the house; or circulating on paved streets with high-rise buildings rather than on dirt roads near conventional housing.! Films such as Mandabi, Ta Dona (Adama Drabo, 1991) Visages de Femmes (Désiré Ecaré, 1985), and Diankha-bi contrast the two groups of women in this manner. In Sango Malo the spatial difference is made by status or work and language. \The teacher character Ngo Bangang dresses in western- -style clothing and speaks French while the women who cultivate the land are dressed in African clothing and speak Bassa. Saikati portrays the African/westernized _dichotomy through the spatial contrast of the Maasai village of the character Saikati and the Nairobi capital where she ventures with her westernized cousin Monica. Her environmental space is transposed from the Maasai plains into the busy, car-driven streets. The film’s thythm isi reflected in thesspatial s shift as well, as we move from the slow pace of the village and rural setting to the noisy rhythm of the urban setting.

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BETI ELLERSON

In Finzan (Cheikh Oumar Sissoko, 1986) the commonplace movement sequences read like a series of tableaux of quotidian activities of village women: a woman bends over a well pulling up a rope for water; a woman sitting on a low stool stands up and bends over to arrange wood for fire; a woman bends over as she washes her two children who are stooping; a woman with a baby on her back is working at an oven facing another woman. The camera captures the movement of the baby’s body to the rhythm of the woman; as she moves back and forward while working, there is a cut to a medium close-up of the woman and baby. Another sequence portrays a woman cutting wood. Three co-wives sit on the ground as they mourn over the death of their husband. A woman carries a bundle of wood on her head. A low shot illustrates two women sitting on low stools with a young girl. A woman is seated while stirring porridge. A woman and young girl sleep together on a mat. The camera frames three women, Nanyuma, Fifi and her mother, sitting at various heights inside a room. A woman sitting on a stool under a tree cleans rice while another sits further away; she stands and bends over to sweep. A woman lays her head on the lap of the woman who coifs her. At several locations in Touki Bouki the camera stops as Anta continues along; the women serve as a text from which to read the body in relation to the unconventionality of the “new African woman,” the student.|As she passes, one may make a checklist of female corporeal practices: bunches of women stoop while washing clothes in a washing area, a young girl lowers a pail from her head and dumps its contents; young girls wait their turn in line to fill their buckets with water at the public water faucet; Anta meets her Aunt Oumi whose lips are tattooed and hair is coiffed in a Jamono Kura hairstyle. Compared to the women in each of these scenes, Anta stands outside of

their conventional femininity. X

La noire de... unfolds within a filmic juxtaposition of the African and European body in both African and European/westernized spaces. Sembéne’ s treatment of these bodies is divided into three spatial contexts: the French urban areas of Dakar with the government buildings, high-rise apartments, paved streets, monuments, the

The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy ett onto

oT

university and bourgeois dwellings; the quartiers populaires, neighborhoods of the general population, with unpaved sidewalks and roads, less expensively constructed dwellings, outdoor activities, public watering spaces; and the Côte d’Azur, which Diouana observes upon her arrival, where the apartment of the French couple is located. Diouana’s dramatic saga is depicted in a series of scenes that generally take place in the French couple’s living room as they entertain guests or relax. The scene where Diouana washes the dishes, the spatial focus that orients the eye towards her on the back of the right side of the frame, is deliberate. The living room, where the couple passes a great deal of time, occupies most of the frame, while the kitchen to its right, where Diouana spends her time, takes up only a small corner. This spatial division represents the psychological space in which Diouana lives; confined, shut out, and pushed aside. The contrast

between the spatial boundaries of the two areas of Dakar and the apartment in France is used cinematically to highlight Diouana’s corporeal comportment. The small, confining and restricting space of the French apartment accentuates Diouana’s ennui, interiority and dismay, compared to the gaiety and enthusiasm that she expresses when she is first employed by the French woman in Dakar where she was able to move freely about in the large house. Sembéne deliberately contrasts Diouana’s African-adorned body to the French-style architecture of the Plateau. Diouana is wearing a Senegalese ensemble and head wrap as she searches for a job in the French-influenced section of Dakar. In perhaps one of the most stunning scenes in the film, Sembéne superbly juxtaposes Diouana and Madame as they both walk together with their backs to the camera after having negotiated Diouana’s employment. The scene before their encounter spatially designates the power relations between the two. While passing a parked Mercedes Benz to her left, Madame arrives to the right of the frame walking toward the area where the young Senegalese women are seated on the ground, waiting to be chosen for employment. The composition of the scene is such that a wall separating the women from the upcoming Madame makes them unaware of each other, but visible to the spectator. It is a striking

38

BETI ELLERSON

spatial representation of power and servility between European and African. Wearing sunglasses, Madame is dressed in skirt and jacket ensemble carrying a handbag; the Senegalese women are sitting on _ the ground wearing Senegalese garments. The spatial uses of the environment and geography in situating the body are particularly apparent when juxtaposing the rural and urban settings of Africa. Gaston Kaboré’s Zan Boko (1988) offers an excellent example of the parallel uses of the body in these settings. Through cuts and dramatically angled shots, the spectator goes in and out of contrasting rural and urban spaces that are within meters of each other. As urbanization encroaches upon the rural setting, the “language changes from Moré to French; the sight of village people sitting on the ground and low stools, eating and preparing food outdoors, is followed by images of bourgeois settings with people sitting at a well-appointed table and dining in the interior of their expensive home. The rural dwellers are called peasants and viewed as backward. It is perhaps in this film that the process that distinguishes Africa as rural and traditional from the “west” as urban and modern is the most clearly read. The parallel action sharply delineates African and western codes. In Finzan the rebellious acts of Bambara women are juxtaposed against those that have been repeated or enacted as commonplace situations. For instance, after Nanyuma’s environment is established within the village where she participates in daily activities, she runs away to her mother’s house to avoid marrying her deceased husband’s brother, leaving her mother to be ousted by her father who considers his wife an accomplice. Upon her capture and return, she joins in the everyday life of the other women in her village. She runs away a second time to her brother-in-law’s house, encountering a prowling lion on the way. She is harshly treated and returned by her brother-in-law with her hands and feet tied. Upon her return, she is again re-integrated into village life. The women of the village insist on speaking to the chief, entering in the meeting place which is traditionally admissible only to men. As they sit together on the ground, this unprecedented event occurs without any change in the normal practices of the women. The dis-

The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy aa ee a

__

39*

covery of Fifi’s unexcised clitoris occurs in an encounter with her “rival” as they are both bathing. Their meeting is made to appear a normal encounter between two young women of their age, and their

dialogue is only audible to the viewer. This event is presented in such / a matter-of-fact way one wonders in what situation the two women would have their vulvae exposed to each other. By openly stating that the clitoris is the part of the body that makes a woman, Fifi challenges the women’s notions of the purpose of the clitoris while confronting the village chief’s authority over the women. The resistance to the conventions of women’s réles in Bambara culture is not dramatically set off by these/events within the mundane activities of quotidian life. It is not the change in aestheticization, corporeal practices, or the spatial environment that serves as the catalyst towards consciousness-raising, but rather the evolution that occurs from one

generation to the next.| It is the various ways of looking at the “very pose of the subject,” Roland Barthes asserts, “which prepare the reading of the signifieds

of connotation.” It is “because of the existence of typed attitudes which form ready-made elements that a gesture, look or pose may project meaning. puckered lips, a wide-eyed look of interest, and

a store of stereoof signification” (A hidden smile, a tilted head are

coded signifiers, within western signs, that suggest seduction, flirtation, and an invitation to gaze. Film language constructs this look from coded signifiers of femininity, “sexiness,” and sophistication which transfers to an African context imposing markers of western values. |\As the African female body acquires western accoutrements ! of hair care,

fashion,

or overall

countenance

the

schism

tradi-

tional/modern takes shape. In addition to the gaze of the photographic camera in its construction of femininity, “sexiness” and Euro-defined sophistication, cinematic language creates scopophilia through camera movement, flow of action, and changes in distance. This construct of exotica works especially within the codes that define women as

traditional.

* Roland Barthes: “The Photographic Message.” A Barthes Reader, ed. Susan Sontag. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), p. 201.

40

BETI ELLERSON

Saaraba and La Vie est belle raise the question of African versus |western film language and cultural codes. They also engage a debate around the subject of the African female body in contemporary African films. In a scene of the opening sequence of Saaraba, Lissa, the romantic interest of the protagonist Tamsir, lies on the ground as her friend coifs her hair. Tamsir arrives and greets his family after being away in France for seventeen years. As Lissa enters the frame re-

sponding to his salutations, she shows her newly coiffed hair with braided extensions pulled to one side over the shoulder. Though Seck apparently seeks to portray a young village woman engaged in commonplace activities in her everyday environment, the spectator is not convinced of the verisimilitude of Lissa’s movements. The scene es- tablishes Lissa as the love interest of the protagonist and an object to

be ogled at, gazed upon and peeped at. | In a subsequent scene in two separate cuts, Lissa brings water to the soon-to-be rivals, the MP and Tamsir, kneeling beside them as _ they drink. The construction of this scene provides a pretext for a _“western male gaze” to take in Lissa as they both drink the water. A cut to Lissa’s back shows the details of her body motion; a second cut to the MP, and then to Tamsir allows the spectator to observe the two men as they both ogle her. During Tamsir’s visit to Lissa as she works at the river, she is displayed as her wet, sheer clothing clings to her body. While sitting on the ground sewing on a manual machine, Lissa is in stark contrast to her mother who is seated in front of her. The contrast in their countenance and body attitude goes beyond generational differences. Though it is implied that her mother does not read French and is “traditional,” there are no indications that show that Lissa has been socialized differently. Yet she illustrates a similar urban western “sophistication” as Tamsir who has spent years in France, is literate in French, and easily circulates in the urbanized areas of Senegal! Lissa is constructed as a young, “traditional” village woman within a western male gaze. There is a “sexiness” and seductiveness that seems well out of place in the village. This construction reveals the incongruities that emanate from the exoticization of Afri-

can corporeality. |}

4

The Female Body as Symbol of Change and Dichotomy

41

X A similar pattern is visible in La Vie est belle. During the opening sequence of the film, the camera marks the presence of Kabibi as she is regarded by Kuru, the protagonist of the film played by the popular Zairian musician Papa Wemba. She is wearing a school uniform, is coiffed in braided extensions and carrying books. Throughout the film she is seen performing tasks such as pounding millet in an enclosed compound where she lives with her mother, and sitting on a low stool while preparing food with her cousin. While carrying a bas-

ket on her head as she passes a wrought iron fence, Kabibi is framed as an image to be gazed upon. In the concluding sequence, a western-

ized rendition of African magic is depicted in a trance scene as

Kabibi’s face is spotted with paint, her tresses hanging to her shoulder and partially covering her face. These images exoticize a “westernized” African woman who “dabbles in tradition." | In both Saaraba and La Vie et belle culturally specific female corporeality is appropriated and eroticized outside of its contextual milieu. We find the same “male gaze” as that which is so pervasive in western films, fixed upon the African female body, just as colonial

images of the colonized female both exoticized and eroticized the “native” woman in her “natural” habitat.‘ What marks these images is

—the employment of western codes of femininity and the female body in the representation of African women. Within the images that signify African conventions of corporeal practices and dress, there are those that are in closer proximity to western notions of the European. ideal and those on the other end of the continuum toward the African stereotyped, as traditional. It is within this continuum that African films have been able to construct a traditional African woman within western film language and codes. As a counter-reading to this tendency, one must consider the importance of using specific African cultural modalities as the paradigm in the exploration of the African female body in filmic representation.

“ Cf Malek Alloula: 7he Colonial Harem. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), where he explores the French construction of the colonized woman.

TABAN

LO LIYONG

Three Poems from The Cows of Shambat Alphabetization of the Workers The Colonial master taught me the names For the general tasks of road maintenance: A was for digging gravel B was for carrying it to the roadside C was for making gravel heaps D was for filling holes with gravel E was for maintaining culverts F was for digging channels G was for cutting grass H was for something else ...

The colonial mistress taught me the names For the general task of house cleaning A was for sweeping house B was for taking rubbish away C was for making tea D was for warming water E was for waking bwana' up F was for waking memsab* up F was for serving them tea H was for making beds and throwing condoms away

" boss, sir

* lady, madam from: The Cows of Shambat. (Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1992). Exclusiv ely distr. by African Books Collective, Oxford. Courtesy of African Books Collective. With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

Three Poems When I was When I was

we changed tasks asked what was H? I answered ‘H was for something else’ sacked for being cheeky.

Messed Up By English English, you are not my tongue But you have fucked me up What is this notion called ‘being clever by half? Could the bat’s hesitation between becoming a bird And remaining ordinary grain-eating rodent qualify? English, you are not my tongue But you have messed me up I couldn’t love you more than Wole Soyinka Plodding through the Advanced Oxford Dictionary (un-abridged) To amass the words that frightened Renage Lohiya’s Papuan son in Waigani Whilst maintaining my inherited place amongst the Acholi and Bari-speakers. Am I too clever by half Abandoning earth To clamber on a tendril Intent on saying ‘yes’ to God in Hopkins’s tongue?

English you are not my tongue But you’ve lost my way for me The mores that I know barely fill a market basket But my mind is stuffed by Calvin, Luther, Nietzsche, Wilberforce and Jesus knows My stock of moralizing words grows vaster than cancer Taking the string of revenge away from my hand Thus disarmed by words that I prized I am caged in

ethics.

43

44

TABAN LO LIYONG

Am I foolish by half Entangling myself in positive logicalism - or is it logical positivism - that Russel and Ayer stumbled upon? The fault dear Brutus, so the paraphrase goes Lies not in the things themselves But in the slovenly use of words And improperly formulated ideas.

Maybe a bout of rational thinking Could aid my course in being logical And help me banish all superstitions.

The ancient creatures of dark night crowd my brain I review mythologies, thoughts, ideas, and a tribe of fears Banished from English since Christendom. English, you have messed me up By excluding my fears and anxious moments.

Typing Lessons The quick brown fox Jumped over the lazy black fox (that doesn’t sound right!)

The quick white fox Jumped over the lazy brown fox

(that’s even worse!) The quick black fox Jumped over hurdles in Seoul (that’s better.)

RATIBA HADJ-MOUSSA

The Locus of Tension: Gender in Algerian Cinema In memory of Kateb Yacine

The tragic events presently occuring in Algeria are creating a kind of historical amnesia, in the sense that the last decade almost seems to have invented and propagated its own explanations, as if it has no causes from the past. Analysts, indeed, target the NLF (National Liberation Front), which led the fight against France and which, for three decades, was the only political party in post-colonial Algeria, as the principal cause of the Algerian crisis, be it economic or a sociological. Furthermore, most analysts focus on the political realm as if the State and its apparatuses could themselves shed light on the complexity of Algerian society. In so doing, they minimize the anthropological dimension of this very society. Because this article deals with Algerian cinema of the seventies and the early eighties, I will focus on the political, the sociological and the anthropological dimensions of Algerian society in relation to gender. More specifically, I will attempt to locate, through gender, - the ruptures created by cultural practices (for example cinema in postcolonial societies) as well as the ways these practices put into question (or resist) dominant models of modernity, such as development. I will also show the impossibility of escaping models of modernity which are themselves frequently seen as homogeneous and are governed by economic exigencies. Cinema is a primary example of the societal ruptures mentioned above: it employs modes of expression which show the relative autonomy of the cultural sphere as compared to the political or the economic. Furthermore, the role of cinema seems to me to be crucial, With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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RATIBA HADJ-MOUSSA

because of its ability to construct its own image and thereby to convey a sense of unity in place of what had been actually fractured, that is, an Algeria that had experienced 130 years of French colonialization. Of course, such “unification” is the essential function of the image, which is, one should add, always related to political and

ideological dimensions. To be sure, the restitution of a proper image is not the prerogative of cinema alone. Television and other media also share this common function. Cinematographic fiction, however,

introjects something else into the project of image-construction and into the projection of a unified entity. Indeed, despite the fact that the cinematographical production is state-controlled and despite its realistic writing/écriture, it somehow displaces the dogmatism and or- thodoxy presiding in other media such as the press, or in statecontrolled broadcasts in Algeria. It was not until the youth rebellion of 1988 that the Algerian press — and only the press — was liberalized and privatized. Until today, cinema and national television remain under state control and the films I will analyze here were all statefinanced. In order to analyze the construction of a “Nation-Image,” I will limit my inquiry to the 1970s and the early eighties. It was over the course of this decade that Algeria not only proclaimed its modernity, endowing itself with state-of-the-art technology, but it also embraced strategies privileging heavy industry (the so called “industrializing industry”) over light industry and agriculture. It was at this time that Algeria promoted a modernity of its own, affirming the possibility of a “specific socialism” — in the French sense of “socialisme spécifique.” The adjectif specific accounts here for the Islamic component in an economic model otherwise copied from the USSR. This formula and the strategies it engenders are of the utmost importance for defining gender relations in Algeria. Although this link is regularly overlooked by political analysts, gender relations make Clear that the oscillations and contradictions in Algerian society.' In' Gender relations focus on the positioning of men and women, on the definition s and legitimizations of more or less fixed identifiable gender positions as well as on their underlying ambivalent dynamic. To think in terms of gender relations means to detach the notions of “male” and “female” from the metaphysical understanding that confines them to normative and a-prioristic definitions, and to problematize their definitions as the re-

The Locus of Tension

47

deed, gender relations constitute a privileged vantage point that allows for a deeper comprehension of Algerian society. This is because

gender relations constitute poles of tension which manifest, in turn, the specificity of Algerian modernity promoted under the auspices of the NLF. The Algerian model of development privileged aspects of production and productivity, and considered women to be productive individuals in the general pursuit of the nation’s welfare. Women were | conceptualized as agents whose “promotion” and “emancipation” ! were directly linked to those of the Algerian people. Given this ideology, Algerian women did not need to imitate the struggle of Western women, they were supposedly already citoyennes a part entiére, “full citizens” endowed with all the fundamental democratic rights and privileges to which they might aspire. This reference, among others, to “the people” as a whole served as a pretext to halt specific demands made by women as women, as sexed individuals. It furthermore neutralized any reference to sexed individuals, namely women, in new modern spaces such as schools, factories and offices. If women are subsumed under the-aegis of “the people” (allowing them access to public space), it is only at the price of the negation of their “being-woman.” Women are not only considered to be productive agents, but more importantly, they are also the guardians of deeper Arab-Islamic values of “valeurs profondes arabo-musulmanes.”? \n sult of an endless negotiation in the social field. According to the philosopher Françoise Collin in her Catégorisation de sexe et construction scientifique. (Toulouse: Université de Provence CEFUP, 1989), “men and women occupy different strategical positions, places which are subject to displacements, which should not be confused with essences”

(p.30). Gender relations are the locus where sexed social agents - men or women — confront, contest and test each other in order to trace the symbolic limits which express that which is thinkable and what is acceptable for them. As the historian Joan Scott, in her Gender and the Politics of History. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) reminds us, gender relations refer to the social organization of sexual difference which permeates, by means of knowledge, all social discourses and practices (p.2). Furthermore, gender primarily signifies relations of power. Power here is not understood as being unified, coherent, and centralized, but rather as forming itself, in Foucault’s terms, “on the moving ground of power relations which constantly induce through their inequality, other states of power, but always local and unstable ones” (Michel Foucault: Histoire de la sexualité. La volonté de savoir; vol.1. (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), p.122). 2 Before the rise of Islamism in Algeria, this expression was frequently used by so called revolutionary discourses.

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RATIBA HADJ-MOUSSA

this respect one may conclude that it is the duty of women to uphold the “specificity” of Algerian socialism. This complex discursive construction accounts for a crucial anthropological fact with respect to gender relations: the spatial separation of gender follows the dichotomies of exterior/interior, public/private which subtend the logic of honor.’ This logic is fundamental, for the spaces alloted to men and women are clearly defined. The integrity of women’s space goes along with the integrity of their bodies. This space is called the “harem,” that is, forbidden or “inviolable” space. In this perspective, the female body (encumbered by a tremendous number of rules and prescriptions) acts as a metonymy for the community — every attack on its integrity is an attack on the community. Contrary to the general belief held in occidental societies, the Islamic conception of female sexuality is very active, which effectively turns women into a potential threat to the the integrity of their group.‘ While the female body poses an integral threat, it carries, at the same time, positive values. In a word, this positive value is motherhood, which in turn privileges the procreation of males. Men, for their part, have to face the exterior world, to protect their land and their children as well as the women of their family.’ The spatial separation of gender is a structuralizing element, since it permeates the practices of social agents — a phenomenon not unique to Algerian society. Its traces can be found at all levels of discourse — including the official and the normative. Furthermore, this Separation is not simply implicit, but constantly reworked and foregrounded in all social discourses. Cinema is but one example.

* Pierre Bourdieu: Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique. (Genéve: Droz, 1972);“L’honneur et la vengeance dans deux communautés méditerranéennes: La Calabre méridionale et le Nord-Est constantinois. Actes du 2ème Congrès internati onal d'étude des cultures de la Méditerranée occidentale, vol. II. (Alger: SNED, 1978), pp.460-68, . Claude-Henri Breteau/Nello Zagnoli: “Le statut de la femme dans deux communautés rurales méditerranéennes: La Calabre et le Nord-Est constanti nois.” Les temps modernes 518 (1981), pp.1954-2007.

* Fatima Mernissi: Sexe et idéologie en Islam. [Collection femme et sociéte] (Paris: Tierce , 1983), p.3. * cf. Raymond Jamous: Honneur et Baraka. Les structures sociales traditio nnelles dans le Rif. (Paris: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1981).

The Locus of Tension

49

The duality of the female role in Algerian modernity has been thoroughly analyzed and is indeed paradoxical. The traditional logics of honor as well as Islam coexist with the modern one. Radia Abdelkrim-Chikh has accurately diagnosed this paradoxical co-existence as an “institutional schizophrenia,” as is the case in law where the equality of women is recognized by the Constitution but undone or even negated by a Family Code inspired by the sharia. While most analysts stop at this aporia, it seems to me more important to trace the effects and interrelations of the logic of honor and of the logic of modernity in order to understand what is at stake in the issues they raise. The structural separation of gender relations, which is grounded in a spatial separation as I have indicated, goes far beyond the strict frame of the relations of social agents, and contaminates official discourses by giving a particular connotation to women’s right to leave the domestic sphere. If Algerian women gained a certain equality thanks to their involvement in the battle for political independence — an argument repeatedly used in official discourse — their demands based on their specific status as women have constantly been denied and denounced as bourgeois and antirevolutionary.’ The use of popular notions such as “the people,” “the state,” and “the revolution,” served to silence women’s demands.

Also, in their interpellation of women, these very notions present themselves as neutral and sexually undifferentiated. The political discourse of Algerian modernity could thus speak to women without interfering with their integrity, and without awaking the distrust of men. Having said this, what may one say about Algerian cinema? How does cinematographical discourse position itself with respect to these issues? How does cinema, itself an instrument of modernity, deal with gender relations, and how does it produce them in turn? To answer these questions, I will draw upon a corpus of Algerian films of $ Rabia Abdelkim-Chikh: “Les enjeux politiques et symboliques de la lutte des femmes pour l’égalité entre les sexes en Algéria.” Peuples méditerranéens 48-9 (1989), pp.25778; p.262.

7? cf. Mohamed-Salah Yahyaoui: Discours d'ouverture et de clôture. 4e Congrès de l’'UNFA. (Alger: FLN, 1978).

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RATIBA HADJ-MOUSSA

the 70s and the early 80s: Le Charbonnier by Mohamed Bouamari (1972); Le Vent du Sud by S.-M. Riad (1975), Leila et les autres by S.-A. Mazif (1978), Omar Gatlato by M. Allouache (1976); Le Vent de Sable by M. Lakdhar-Hamina (1982), Premier pas by M. Boua-

mari (1982) and Une femme pour mon fils by A. Ghanem (1983).* While films of the 1960s focused only on the War of Independence, in the 1970s and 1980s Algerian cinema started dealing with social issues such as the housing shortage, unemployment, and problems which faced the youth and women. More importantly, it was in the 1970s and 1980s that the first images of Algerian post-colonial identities were constructed. Cinema was a major player in the process of re-appropriation of the collective and individual subjectivities as presented in terms of interpersonal relations, especially between men and women. I am concerned here with the main elements of the representation of gender relations: the filmic treatment of history because specific historical references characterize social objects which have been selected (this explains the reasons why these objects were selected and shows what their effects have been on the definition of these relations); and the treatment of space, because of its fundamental role in

the definition of gender. In the films I am considering, representations of time and space constitute an Algerian social imaginary predicated on gender. The cinematographic representation of gender necessarily takes place within the frame of Algerian history, with its constructedness, its privileged referents. To historicize means, in this sense, to identify a specific entity, to base oneself in a past and in a foundational act. But what is the vision of history in the filmic corpus I have chosen? The films refer essentially to the present. The past is simply presupposed as being known, it is rarely explicitly presented. The past is taken up without interrogation, and is constructed on the déjà connu “preformulated cultural constructs,” on practices and on discursive postulates that do not need to be defined, because they are * For a brief presentation of the contents of these films, see the appendix to this article, pp. 62-64.

* cf. Jean-Blaize Grize: “Schématisation, représentations et images.” sives. (Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 1978), pp.45-52.

Stratégies discur-

The Locus of Tension

oo

es51

accepted and deeply rooted in the society. Thus, in these films a pseudo-history surfaces — a history which is, furthermore, limited to a recent past, to the period of struggle and liberation. Omar, for example, the main character of Omar Gatlato, remem-

bers his father, who died in an explosion in the harbour of Algiers during the war. When he talks directly to the spectator about his father, the camera locks onto the surroundings of the actual docks of the harbour and shows the remains of the past: a wall riddled with bullets, and a timeworn commemorative tablet where the French words are almost erased. Behind this vision of history, another clearly parodic version is drawn. The glorious past is so inflated and deformed it becomes incredible. The story about urban guerrillas (Ja bataille d’Alger), told by Omar’s mythomaniac uncle, is met by the members of his family with incredulity and indifference. Even the spectator has been warned by Omar of his uncle’s lies, and the storytelling comes to an abrupt end when an American serial is broadcast on television. Fascinated by another myth the uncle abandons his story. The “heroic past,” as it is called in official discourses, is henceforth relegated to a fantasmagorical zone, to an ethereal memory. It is precisely through the metonymical process that the trajectory of history and memory can be best retrieved. The addition and adjustment of metonymical signs give a specific direction to this trajectory, and produce an aggregative totality. For example, when the coalman (Le Charbonnier), who is the representative of the people, is -immersed in “his” forest,'® still wearing the clothes of a former maquisard, he is unaware of the profound changes going on in Algeria. He does not even realize that Algeria has entered the era of oil and gas. But when he comes into contact with the city, he leaves his torpor and frees himself from his past. He desperately seeks a job in

Algiers. He visits a former war companion (who after independence became the head of a state company) and asks him for help. As the director, ostensibly portrayed as a bourgeois-profiteer, tries to justify 1° The coalman here is not a miner but a producer of charcoal, thus his particular relationship to the forest which is clearly linked to the guerrilla movement (maquis) as a site of resistance in the War of Independence.

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the economic crisis by blaming French colonization, the editing renders him voiceless, covering his voice with another sound which symptomatically belongs to the coalman’s universe, that of the forest. The coalman’s response appears in a later scene through a voice-over, declaring clearly that “the past is the past, essential is the fight of today in order to construct the future.” The reference to the past is thus relative, particularly in light of the requirements of the present and the future. The signs of the character’s past, which imply that he belongs with him among those who constantly invoke the past (ie., bourgeois and rich landowners) in order to legitimate their position, vanish from his universe. Only a certain version of the past is acceptable, the “revolutionary” one. It is because the past contains in itself all the negativities that the present becomes the time of “the true reformulations,” of “the new page” (Premier pas). In Le Charbonnier as well as in Omar Gatlato, history gets lost and is broken down, and it is only presented in ambiguous terms. The remote past is mythologized, a time of tragedy (Le Vent de Sable, Premier pas), but, because of certain of its values such as the importance of the sexual spatial separation, its evocation serves as a guarantee for the formulation of the new propositions about gender. What does it mean for these films to introduce the (remote) past in the formula “Once upon a time” (Le Vent de sable) or to dramatize and folklorize it (Premier pas), if not to devaluate the past and to assert its inadequacy at the present time? Moreover, it has the effect of

erasing former historical gender relations. The cinematographical treatment of history is much more subtle than the political discourse of the same period; invoking, in the case of women, the recent past involves the mixture of different historical configurations and, without completely erasing them, proposes new gender relations. The treatment of history is essentially functional; selected objects are placed within a positive historical trajectory, while history itself becomes the blind spot of film. It is clearly the treatment of space and territory that leads us to a better understanding of how gender relations become reformulated. The treatment of space, which specifically concerns gender, needs to be grounded in another more general space: the Algerian national

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territory, the place of origin where films specify and modulate their definitions, including those involving the transformations of gender. Filmic writing tends to authenticate space, to make it recognizable. Titles such as Le Vent du Sud refer explicitly to regions of Algeria; and Omar Gatlato is an idiomatic Algerian expression. The predilection of Algerian films to depict cultural practices in an ethnographic manner (descriptions of engagements, marriages, and matrimonial transactions, maraboutic rites and funeral rituals) leads to the inscription of the films within a concrete geographical entity, that is, Algeria, with all its differences (mainly vis-à-vis France) and its territorial variety. Taken all together as an intertextual framework, these films produce an implicit common discourse on the Algerian national space. The choice of objects, quotations, and “the predilection for the whole ritualized activities of the daily life”," of what is said and the way it is said, entails the authentication of space. The representation of the city and the country also participates in this authentification of space. These localities are not the object of fixed definitions, nor are they directly opposed to each other. The signs that qualify them are both contradictory and complementary. By contrast, in the Maghrebian literature in the mid 1950s, as Charles Bonn has pointed out, the country is rejected as a space of closed identity; instead, as seen in Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma, the space of the city is adopted as the locus of the heterogeneity of languages, of the plurality of representations; Algerian cinema, which still refers to the country, oscillates between negative and positive representation. What does this mean with respect to gender? The country is not only “shot as the space of origin and moral values,’ it is also an obscure place where “feudals” (rich landowners) live, and where plots are hatched against such noble and revolutionary objectives, as, agrarian reform.

"' Philippe Hamon: “Un discours contraint.” Poétique 16 (1976), pp.411-45;432.

7? Charles Bonn: “L’Ubiquité citadine, espace de l’énonciation du roman maghrébin.” Peuples méditerranéens 37 (1986), pp.57-65;59-60. 13 Nadia Chérabi-Labidi: Les représentations sociales dans le cinéma algérien de 1964 à 1980. [Ph Diss. Université Paris III, 1987], p.676.

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In Le Vent du Sud the city is valorized and transformed into a true myth. Nafissa, the principal female character, is completely centered in it; Rabah, her father’s shepherd, leaves the country and his dumb mother for the more urbanized North to work in one of the new agrarian cooperatives. Le Charbonnier obeys the same logic of devaluating the country, because life in the country fosters dependen-

cies as well as human exploitation. It is during his short passage through the city where he is desperatly seeking a job, that Belkacem, the coalman, develops class consciousness. The country itself is transformed into a living place only after the transplantation of the city objects (factory, school, television, radio, etc.). In these films, the world outside brings the dynamic to the country which is unable to change on its own. Its basic and inadequate forms of knowledge are threatened by a more scholarly one, one whose language is perfectly in tune with ongoing social change. Its survival depends on admitting and absorbing innovations from the city. Le Vent du Sud explicitly positions the city as the center of the film’s enunciation. Its credit titles — considered by theoreticians of cinema as the locus par excellence of the filmic enunciation'* — show images of Algiers. Despite its ethical and moral struggles, the city is a true and symbolic center through which one must necessary pass. The references to the city, especially in films which juxtapose it with the country, work essentially through “citations”: books (Le Vent du Sud), newspapers (Leila et les autres), radio (Le Charbonnier) and television (Leila et les autres, Le Charbonnier). The latter even retransmit news footage covering large demonstrations in Algiers in favor of agrarian reform. If the citation is indeed “a trivial operator of intertextuality,” and if it “appeals to the competence of the reader,” it also “always has to do

with the discourse of the enunciation. There is no citation that engages only the énoncé, and frees itself from the subjects of the enunciation or that does have not the intention ofpersuading.”

* Roger Odin: “L’entrée du spectateur dans la fiction.” Théorie du film, eds. J. Aumont/J.-L. Leutrat. (Paris: Albatros, 1980), pp.198-213; 204. * Antoine Compagnon: La seconde main ou le travail de la citation. (Paris: Seuil, 1979), pp. 40-121; (italics and translation are mine).

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Furthermore, the country is the privileged frame of the feudal and reactionary forces whose true and symbolic fathers embody its very essence. The big land owner, for example, constantly resituates the coalman within an ancestral tradition, urging him to refuse to let his wife go out and work in the new state textile factory. In contrast, the agrarian revolution means the end of these relations of exploitation. Contesting such relations presupposes challenging the gender relations they sustain: “Stop with this old mentality, it should no longer exist nowdays [...]. The nif and the moustache, are for him who works by the sweat of the brow,” the teacher reminds the coalman. The quotations of the city as a center of decisions and the critique of the “fathers” (the land-owner in Le Charbonnier is but one example) are constitutive of a process of substitution, where the power of the father is replaced by the political power of the city. The systematic use of citation in these films, and the portrayal of educational institutions as a means of effecting women’s “emancipation,” indicates the inability of the country to autonomously give up its onerous fathers. They also testify to its potentially reactionary opposition to the advancement of modernity. The accumulation and concentration of “the signs of modernity” in the country facilitate and shape the impending change. This substitution of urban for rural values takes place even if the past to be replaced is hardly defined, ie., if the father is barely present or absent (Omar Gatlato, Leila et les autres). The negating of fathers is accompanied by a massive circulation of the “signs of modernity,” which invalidates their fathers as well as their references and their laws. The characteristic qualities of the city speak in favour of a certain modernity. Its proprieties are treated, purged and reframed according to a targeted alignment of men and women, who must adhere to precise practices and who formulate to precise spaces. Indeed, if the city allows the development of knowledge, particularly the scholarly knowledge from which it takes all its power, it is also an uncontrol'° Nif literally means “nose” and symbolizes the honor of man. Pierre Bourdieu, op.cit. defines it as “point of honor” or “pride” (self esteem). The same thing could be said about the moustache. Bourdieu writes that it “is the symbol of the virility, an essential component of nif’ (p.6, note 4).

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lable and dubious space since it is shared by men and women alike. It is both an attractive and repulsive place affording its inhabitants both creative liberty and the possibility of moral corruption. In contrast to the darker side of the urban landscape, rural space is marked by redeeming purity, where the organization of male and female space is fixed. In order to justify the female presence within non-traditional spaces, these films refer to the country and its rigid spatial divisions. The image of rurality is therefore twofold: it is both negative, justifying the advent of modernity (the model of the city) that is inscribed into the ineluctable march of history, and positive since it helps to thwart the negative side effects of modernity. This dialectical logic makes clear the limits of the supposedly emancipatory filmic dis- courses as well as their double argumentation. Leila et les autres shows the danger which threatens women in the streets of the city; in Une femme pour mon fils, the father of the female character recalls the positive values of the country and opposes to them hotels (a metonomy of the city) which hide forbidden encounters and favour debauchery. The city never becomes opaque: every body, particularly the female one, is overexposed, falsely veiled, shameless. The street as a sexually charged space constitutes a real threat for women, notably for those workers and students who were among the first to enter it. In comparison to the treatment of male characters, who discover the city and who open it up to the spectator’s gaze, the treatment of women’s presence in the street, and consequently the contiguity of female and male, is rapid and elliptic. Consequently, the films adopt as closely as possible the viewpoint of the typical (male) spectator unable to conceive of the street as a legitimate space for women. The itineraries of female characters are dictated, determined in advance by some important reason (work, study, or other customary outings), and their outings do not allow any stops.’ In so doing, the films are close to the discourses of the press in which the street is synonymous with lost morals."* The repetition of ' These remarks are corroborated by Breteau/Zagnoli, Le statu... op.cit., p.1958.

several

anthropological

studies.

Cf.

* Ratiba Hadj-Moussa: Les femmes algériennes entre l'honneur et la révolution. (Laval University, Laboratory of the Department of Sociology, 1984), p. 188.

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this term transforms the street into a cliché and turns it into “la parole d’une culture”;” “the cliché, as Jenny has pointed out, gets its autonomy and coherence from an ‘elsewhere’ that it does not name. It is a summary of the ideological-cultural system from which it derives.”” A sign of verisimilitude, it speaks “the terrorism of the endoxal discourse” and imposes itself through a series of rhetorical, narrative and figurative automatisms. As with the scenes of the street, the bus and factory scenes are treated in a way which avoids any action or gesture that migth subvert the norm. The women who occupy these spaces are shown as being serious workers or students who do

not disturb the established order between men and women. The argumentative logic which links the city and the country is both simple and complex. It is simple because it proceeds byaseries of negative images (the big landowners of the country, the debauchery of the city, etc.), on which it superimposes a series of substitutive elements (the state factory, the agrarian revolution, the rights of workers, the school). It is complex because it maintains some features of the eliminated elements, as the law of spatial separation imposed by the fathers, and integrates them into the new reality. This preservation does not reproduce the canonic separation between men and women; it appropriates the older paradigm in order to mould and regulate it into the new spaces. Seriousness and respect as qualities of the female characters take their meaning from a positive conception of work, grounded in the belief that the reproduction of the labor force comes at the price of sexual gratification. This filmic elaboration shapes the apprehension (in both senses of the term) of the spectator, and reinforces the authority of the state which also provides the authorization for women to occupy the new places. Here, the state is presented in a metonymical form as a sexless entity. AS soon as a space of power opens up to women, it is immediately submitted to several limitations. These limitations appear both in the “formal” procedures (of which I will give an example later on) as

well as in “ideological” procedures. For example, when female char'? Laurent Jenny: “Structures et fonctions du cliché.” 517;509.

2 Jbid., p.498.

Poétique 12 (1972), pp. 495-

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acters keep close to men or are shown alone in the street, it is only because they have been previously identified as workers, unionists or students, all things that carry positive connotations. As emblem bearers of modern Algeria, filmic narratives portray them as serious and respectable (in opposition to femmes fatales). But as the philosopher Sarah Kofman points out, respect is also a means to keep those who are respectable or inspire respect away from others, and thus to create a certain distance between them. These films suggest, in a subtle way, the incapacity of female characters to accomplish their objectives or to fulfill their desires. The ending of Une femme pour mon fils is a good example of formal procedures limiting the woman’s will. Instead of living with her husband’s parents and waiting for him while he is working in France, the heroine decides to break away from her imposed life and “be free.” Shortly after her return to her parents’ home, she has a male baby.” The film ends with the scenes of her return to her parent’s house and the birth of her baby that are linked by a fade-out shot, a form of cinematographic punctuation. This ending shows the hesitation of the filmic argumentation. The power the character begins to acquire is cancelled out by the importance of motherhood as a crystallization of society’s expectations of women, by what Julia Kristeva has called “the bio-symbolic latencies of motherhood.”* The film passes from the demands of woman’s emancipation to her reduction into an ideological, sexualized position. The fictional order finds here its projection into the doxa (the spectators’ beliefs). The encounter of the doxa and the fiction produces the patterns of thought as well as *' Sarah Kofiman, in her Le respect des femmes (Kant et Rousseau). (Paris: Galilé, 1982) says that “To respect women is to see them with a different look than the hooker. It means to put them sufficiently high in order to avoid immediate and closed relationships with them, and to befascinated by them,” pp.41-42.

I would like to point out that the ending of the film differs from the ending of the novel on which the film was based, where the heroine has a female baby. This kind of treatment not only constitutes evidence of sexual discrimination and censorship in the film, but also of a series of distinctions: the differences between two cultural modes of expression (film vs. book); between readers and spectators; and between those who master the French language (since the book is in French) and who can easily adopt occidental ideas; in a word the elite and the illiterate. * Julia Kristeva: “Hérétique de l’amour.” Tel Quel 74 (1977), pp.30-44; 37.

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the “truth,” which suggests the equation, “woman equals motherhood.” Ambiguity and resistance are also found in films which have been defined as being pro-female. This is the case of Le Vent de sable, which tells the story of a young woman, Rogaia, suspected of and then accused of commiting adultery with a young poet/singer. The palm grove where she lives is presented to the viewers by the narrator, a young female university professor who witnessed the scene of adultery as a child. The palm grove is a traditional, self-serving and backward-looking space compared to the openness of the city with its university knowledge. The story, which ends with the murder of the poet and Rogaia being sent back to her tribe, shows the ineptitude of the harsh code which defines male-female relationships as well as the injustice experienced by women. I will not go into the extremely illuminating details on the representation system underlying female speech in comparison to male speech. Instead, I will insist upon the intertwining of image and sound accomplished through editing. Indeed, editing builds arguments and positions them in a double system where the innocence of the female character is questioned not only by what is projected on the screen, but also by what is heard. With respect to the characters, there are three basic patterns in Le Vent de sable linking shot to reverse shot: The first two express the law and the threat conveyed through by the Rogaia’s in-laws, surveillance and persecution; the third expresses seduction, linked essentially to the poet. The sound is the main and the first element of the representation of the poet. Indeed, the poet seems to excel more with words than with glances and expressions, in contrast to those of the family who rarely speak in the film but control everything with their looks. In her relations with the characters that dominate her (especially. the mother-in-law), and who occupy positions of authority, Rogaia, the accused, is subjected to close surveillance and is repeatedly ejected from the action. Sound is used to establish the relationship between the two characters against whom the presumptions of adultery are leveled. For instance, the first and the last exchange of

glances between them occurs when the poet is playing a tune on his

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flute. The tune seems to be directed primarily at the female characters, especially the younger members who show sensitivity to it, since they stop working when they hear it. The music evokes a different semantic world and disturbs the normal and acceptable chain of events. The poet’s singing and the music throughout the story build a parallel argumentation, carrying meanings which extend beyond the direction taken by the filmscript, thus denouncing the injustice and showing Rogaia’s innocence. This doubling of meaning is based on the modality of expression itself. If it is true, as I have argued, that the poet’s gaze is limited, his singing and music invade the camera shot. An example of this can be seen in the way the singing violates inner space (the harem), and saps its codes like a parasite by introducing the world of seduction. Seduction is a parasite, for seducing means “taking away, turning off course,” writes J. Baudrillard.” How does sound relate to characters? In one of the night scenes, Rogaia prepares the bread for dinner, her son seated beside her, when an off-camera voice (from outside) asks the poet to sing. During this time, her husband and her brother-in-law are washing their hands at the doorstep (a series of shots alternate between the inside and the doorstep). When they stand up to enter the house, the off-camera singing of the poet begins. The next shot is a close up of Rogaia, who has a dreamy look, she gets a hold of herself with a slight movement of the head, lowers her eyes and lifts them toward the open door. The brothers enter the house. The brother-in-law glances at Rogaia, whose eyes are lowered. The poet’s off-camera voice invades the shot. For each character there is a unique sound/image relationship. The grandmother, who is away from the others, sits at the back of the room behind the loom. The husband’s sensitivity is limited to the

wind: “The wind is picking up,” he says. Still transfixed by the mu-

sic are the brother-in-law and Rogaia. The singing continues, accompanied by mobile camera (circular panoramic shots and dolly shots), and is replaced near the end of the sequence by the sound of the wind. With the help of sound, this sequence reveals Rogaia to the spectator, through her dreamy look. But there is more, for there ex* Jean Baudrillard: Simulacres et simulations. (Paris: Galilée, 1981), p.35.

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ists a space reserved exclusively for the spectator that underscores the correspondence of sound with character represented in this sequence — a correspondence that attests to the narrator’s work and ultimately the spectators’ judgment of the film. The relationship between the contents of the song and the system of demonstration developed through the plot, is made with the superimposition of the verses of the poet’s song and the characters who appear in the sequences: The poet (off-camera): “She was good for me and I was for her. I met the woman with the black hair.” [the two brothers at the door sill]. The poet (off-camera): “Reached the moon when she left the night.””s (twice) [Rogaia].

The poet (off-camera): “Reached the moon when she left the night.” [Young girls]. The poet (off-camera): “Time is slipping by, I must go.” [The brother-in-law]

The poet (off-camera): “Tomorrow.” [Rogaia]. The poet (off-camera): “Tomorrow I shall return...” [The entire family (circular pan shot)]. His praise continues with a shot of Rogaia. The son becomes provocative and the correspondence more direct.

The poet (off-camera): “You who pretend to smile, your hearts are burnt...” [The two brothers and Rogaia’s son] The poet (off-camera): “Stop loving both and choose the best. If I had to choose, I’d choose neither one, but the third.” [Rogaia].

Based on the narration and the plot, the spectator’s judgment can

only be “double.” If s/he forms it on the basis of the actions of a family who subjects Rogaia to continuous surveillance, and who show that she possesses no autonomy (each time the brother-in-law or mother-in-law enter the scene, Rogaia automatically leaves), the To be more precise: “I reached the moon when she was in prayer.” This passage refers to the dawn prayer, the first prayer of the day for Muslims. Note the erotic allusion, in popular poetry, “the moon” symbolizes a woman and her face.

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spectator is to reyect the repudiation. But if s/he uses as a basis the juxtaposition of sound and image, then Rogaia’s innocence will appear less obvious. The narration functions on two levels and places the spectator in an uncomfortable position. The more s/he identifies with the female character, the more s/he accumulates evidence against her. The building up of the spectator’s knowledge disturbs the playing out of the story of a woman wrongly accused. The plot makes Rogaia an object, but a “powerful” object, which makes it possible, by inversion, to pinpoint the normative frameworks of licit activities. As Louis Marin states, “Seduction transgresses the law and, in so doing, we negatively acknowledge the wellfounded power.”” This inversion is all the more significant because … the boundary of the sexes [as Abdelwahab Bouhdiba writes] can be transgressed even if the visual function is limited and settled by the hearing of speech, singing or even the sound of a simple footstep. Thus this love from a distance based almost exclusively on hearing or hear-say and which feeds on

imagination and fantasies ... 7”

As the film unfolds, its central idea is infiltrated imperceptibly and a sort of a second text is instituted, parallel to the first one. This second text emphasizes how powerful and strongly anchored the structuring separation of the genders and its impact on the cinematographic imaginary can be. Two major contradictory and simultaneous tendencies pervade the films of the corpus under study. On the one hand, gender relations are no longer as they used to be. A “new page” is turned for women. The image of the fathers, that is, the representatives of the old order where honor was the binding element, is weakened and undermined; virility,* though “affirmed, is deprived of its cardinal signs, and the

# Louis Marin: “Le roi, son confident et la reine ou la séduction du regard.” Traverses. [La stratégie des apparénces, 18] (Paris: Centre George Pompidou, 1980), pp. 25-

36,28.

* Abdelwahab Bouhdiba: La sexualité en Islam. (Paris: PUF, 1982). p.53 * Virility is one of the most important attributes of the logic of honor. Virility means machismo, as it is usually understood in reference to women. It also appeals to noble feelings and actions, where a man has to be considered as one man among others. It refers to a certain equality between men, notably in societies where wealth has no value without a certain “behavior of honor.”

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conception of honor is cut off from its former references”:” and finally, the community order is replaced by the priorities of the modern couple (Leila et les autres, Premier pas). On the other hand, the new spaces allowed to women, many of them shared by men and women, are not opened up without a certain suspicion. They are, indeed, redefined on the basis of valorized social images of women and their opposites, marginalized women who do not correspond to the canon — prostitutes, dancers (in cabarets or cafés), and French (ie., Western) women. The latter are the incarnation of the uncontrollable and threatening body; in a word, they are the “mad body.” These redefinitions continue to reconfigure rules edicted by the very same fathers, who are the object of the critique in the films. The representa-

tion of gender relations therefore is difficult to reduce to simple terms. This indecision, which characterizes the filmic discourses on gender, expresses a transitional moment in which a new (re)disposition of the principal figures of authority, the state and the fathers, is established. The fact that these discourses take into account (be it only partially), the rationalities guiding the father’s universe, indicates the cultural ascendancy of the latter and of their legitimate representatives (sons), who defend the traditional law of the sexual separation of gender. The power relations of the father/state are sustained by new terms which could be apprehended through hesitations and resistances occurring in the films. Although these films cannot affirm radically new propositions on gender relations, they erode the fathers’ position. This moment of transition is potentially deadly for the power of the fathers, who have already been weakened by several overturnings (colonization, urbanization, destructuration of the family, individualization, education, etc.). The symbolic systems from which this position draws its strength seem not to function the way they did before. Following the transformations which occurred in Maghrebian societies, Gilbert Grandguillaume noticed that the Maghrebian languages are stuck in their words, that they are “unable to say what they could # Gilbert Grandguillaume: “Père subverti, langage interdit.” Peuples méditerranéens 33 (1985), pp. 163-82; 180.

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not say, [ie.,] the freedom of the individual desire.”* He concluded that there exists a fractured symbolic in these societies. What is at stake is nothing less than the legitimacy of the fathers.

The filmic mise en scéne of gender relations thus raises the fundamental question of the transmission of the symbolic and of its sustaining parts. The reality staged by cinema is itself represented by cinema as an instrument of modernity. The camera as a frame, and as a gesture prior to the reception of films, unveils the feminine universe (be it only in the realm of fiction), which is nevertheless forbidden to the male gaze in the society under scrutiny. In this timid passage from intimate space to public space, cinema produces a new reality. It attests to a rupture at the symbolic level between political and anthropological dimensions, represented metonymically by the signs of both the Father and the State.

Appendix Le Charbonnier: appeared at the beginning of the 70s and is important because it gave birth to what film historians have termed “Je cinéma djedid,” or New Cinema. The movie tells the story of a coalman who must find a new trade since he can no longer practice his old one — the new natural gas industry of Algeria had pushed him out of business. He decides to go to the city to look for a job to rescue himself and his family from poverty. While he is gone, and despite his strong opposition, his wife starts working at the newly built textile factory in the village that hires only women. Noticing the incredible change in their daily life caused by his wife’s work, he is finally convinced of the wellfoundedness of the whole social transformation. He even dreams he defies the old norms of behavior by demanding that his wife take her veil off in the presence of all the inhabitants of thevillage. Le Vent du Sud relates. the story of a young female student on holida y in an isolated village in southern Algeria. Her father, a rich landowner, wants to marry her to the village’s mayor in order to avoid the expropr iations related to the agrarian reform. She refuses, and flees the village to Algiers with the help of her father’s former shepherd who wants to join an agrarian cooperative in the North. When her father discovers their flight,

°° Ibid., p.180.

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he pursues them on his horseback swearing that he will “wash his honor,” but the two fugitives escape by taking a state transport company bus which miraculously appears. Leila et les autres tells the story of two women: Myriam, who refuses to be married off by her family and pleads the cause of her studies, and Leila, her neighbour, who has two children and works assembling television sets in a private factory. Leila fights for ‘the respect and the dignity” of female workers. When one of her female colleagues is humiliated by the foreman, she provokes a strike. The strike divides the workers along gender lines because the male workers are initially reluctant to believe this “women’s story,” although they end up understanding that they must have solidarity with their female colleagues if they want their mutual rights protected.

Omar Gatlato is the first film that deals with the problems of the youth. Omar, a civil servant at the gold control office, lives with his large family in a popular neighbourhood of Algiers. The title “Omar Gatlato” refers to the virility, redjla, and means Omar is killed [by the virility, HMR]. The word virility is supposedly not expressed. The term redjel, which means “man,” derives from the redjla. Redjla refers to honor as well as to courage. When it is exaggerated, it signifies machismo. Omar, the main character, has a passion for popular romantic music from the region of Algiers and from India. He always carries with him his tape recorder, be it to a wedding, a concert, or a play. One night, his tape recorder is stolen. His life becomes completely chaotic and loses its meaning. Later, his friend, Moh Smina (Moh the Big), rescues him by finding him a tape recorder on the black market, and he offers Omar an empty tape. However, when Omar tries the tape recorder, he is surprised by a female voice. Omar is “shocked” and seduced. He attempts, more or less directly, to get to know the person hidden behind the voice. Moh informs him that it is Selma’s voice, a colleague of his, who had previously wanted to buy the tape recorder. Omar arranges an appointment with her. But at the appointment, and despite the encouragements of his friend, Omar hesitates a long time before approaching her. When he finally decides to do so, other close friends appear and tell him to “stay with them.” He renounces his date and promises to himself to call the woman back. The story of Le Vent de Sable is located in an isolated palm grove and relates the life of Rogaia,a young woman who is suspected of having committed adultery with a young poet. She is continually watched by her

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husband’s mother and brother. Despite the fact that all the inhabitants of the palm grove talk about it, her husband is not aware of this “affair” until the old poet of the community sings a song, exhorting him to avenge his honor. Convinced of the “truth” of the allegations, he brutalizes Rogaia and slits the young poet’s throat in public. When his mother hears about the murder, she sends Rogaia back to her native tribe.

Une femme pour mon fils tells the story of a young woman inatraditional marriage. While her husband is away working in France, she stays with her husband’s parents. Not getting along with her terrible mother-in-law, and unhappy with her life, she claims the right to “be free and to study.” Although pregnant with her husband’s baby, she decides to leave his family and return to her parents’ house. She gives birth to a male baby. Premier pas is the story of a female teacher who becomes the mayor of her — village. Her election to office poses many problems for her — among others, the reluctance and the resistance of her husband. A teacher as well, he is presented as a man of the left who before she ran for election, had always supported her in making changes in the village. At the end of the film, they are reconciled. The narrative of this film is very complex, because it intertwines with three other stories. One of them is related by a former miner and traces the origins of the village; the two other characters each relate a story about an unfortunate marriage. These marriages are criticized because they were arranged by families who did not give future spouses the opportunity to choose for themselves. These three stories, which punctuate the main narrative, were collected as material for a drama the teacher couple were about to prepare with their students.

J.O.J. NWACHUKWU-AGBADA

Women in Igbo-Language Videos: The Virtuous and the Villainous Film production in Nigeria has begun relatively recently although a

cinema of entertainment and education existed for some time. The earliest films produced in the country were silent. According to Françoise Balogun they were made for the Health Department in the years 1936 to 1940. Serious film makers did not emerge until the 1970s, the period between the 1940s and the 1960s being dominated by foreign production of documentary films and newsreels.' Indigenous filming and film production in Nigeria has largely been the preserve of the Yoruba of the Southwest. They have had a long cinematic tradition, popularized by such Yoruba traditional theatre practitioners as Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo, Moses Adejumo and Ade

Folayan.

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Up till the present, none of the Nigerian notables in the film industry has been Igbo. However, since the late 1980s when video-filming became popular, the Igbo have shown tremendous interest not only in the various productions, but also in their financial and material sponsorship. Surprisingly, despite their attachment to Western presentations, the Igbo video film viewers show a marked preference for Igbo and not English-language films. The revolution in Igbo video viewership reached its climax in 1992 with the production of the Igbo-language masterpiece, Kenneth Nnebue’s Living in Bondage. Before this time, there had been a few such Igbo films, but none with such a concentration of human pathos. No fewer than ten Igbo' Frangoise Balogun: The Cinema in Nigeria. (Enugu: Delta Publications, 1987), p.47. * Kenneth Nnebue: Living in Bondage.

1992/93).

Parts I & II. (Lagos: NEK

Video Links,

With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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language video films have been produced since 1992. Some of them have infantile themes, but a few more possess the sweep of Living in Bondage. Some are so popular that although they were initially less than two hours long, they were later extended into four- and six-hour versions. These films often have English titles despite being made in Igbo, with code-switching into English. Their settings are in both the rural and urban areas, especially in Lagos, the economic capital of Nigeria, where there is a large aggregation of Igbos. Living in Bondage, Evil Passion, My Father’s Blood, Taboo, Circle of Doom and Nneka are all set in Lagos. Man Proposes is set in Onitsha, while The Curse is set in Aba, another Igbo city. However, what endears these films to their Igbo audience, apart from their language, is their social relevance. The films are emerging at a time when the redefinition of values that began with colonialism is at its peak. What these films say about fundamental Igbo values, about possessiveness, materialism, morality, love and devotion, women, fairness, dishonesty, survival, hardwork, religion, avarice, jealousy, desperation, and patience, is at the core of their popularity. Typically, one finds in these films images of the Igbo woman as propellers and promoters of virtue and villainy. All the thematic preoccupations of these films revolve around the necessity to satisfy or deceive women, for a woman to stretch her luck in contrast to a man’s, for a man to drive one woman away and pick another, for a

man to take revenge against another man because of a woman. Some of the female characters go out of their way to seduce another’s husband on account of the latter’s wealth or success by employing the services of charmists and medicine men and women. In some cases, women are victims of men’s desire to be wealthy or to enlarge their * Solomon Eze/Philip Phil-Ebosie: Evil Passion. Parts I & II. (Onitsha: J.B.M. Productions, 1993); Ray Emeana: My Father's Blood. Parts I & IL (Owerri: Jacon, 1994); Tony Meribe/Daniel Oluigbo: Taboo. (Lagos: Sage, 1994); Okechukwu Ogunjiofor: Circle of Doom. Parts I & II. (Onitsha: Videosonic Productions, 1993); Okechukwu Ogunjiofor: Nneka, the Pretty Serpent. (Lagos. Videosonic Studios, 1994); Stephen Alejemba: Man Proposes. Parts I & II. (Onitsha: Filmark Productions, 1993); Uchegbulam Nwabuisi/Tony Madugba: The Curse. Parts I, I & IIl. (Aba: UEC Electronics,

1993).

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harem |In others, men have had to be faced with the ordeal of going home with spirits whom they had taken for prostitutes or call-girls. ) The “virtuous” may be considered those who are pure-hearted, dutiful or principled. The category may encompass those who suffer a period of agony and even death as a result of their strong moral attributes or pietistic stances. Such individuals might have been vagrant, but upon conversion would now be known to hold tenaciously to godly acts. The above observations will be better appreciated as we discuss the fates of the noble-hearted females in Igbo films.\ In Nnebue’s Living in Bondage, the virtuous Merit (played by Nnenna Nwabueze) is the wife of Andy (Kenneth Okonkwo), the young, vivacious but inordinately ambitious husband who is bewildered by the wealth recently acquired by some of his friends with whom he lives in Lagos. Merit discerns Andy’s restiveness and does everything within her powers to dissuade him from his immoral thoughts about becoming wealthy at all costs. Despite Merit’s fidelity (she has lost her job after resisting her boss’s sexual overtures) and the occasional monetary gifts she receives from her own parents and relations, Andy persuades Paul (Okechukwu Ogunjiofor), his friend, to show him the route to wealth. The price he would have to pay would be the ritual murder and sacrifice of someone close to him — a daughter, father, mother, wife or bosom friend. Initially, Andy thought that he could fool the cultists by passing off a prostitute he picked up on the night of the ritual as his wife. However, at Lucifer’s shrine of wealth, Tina, the prostitute, is rejected as she suddenly mutters, “I am covered by the blood of Jesus.” The fact that Tina is not Andy’s wife also comes to light. The cult chief (played by Dan Oluigbo) then decrees: “Andy, yaburu n’ikpotaghi nwanyi gi ebe a na nzuko ozo i nwuo!” (Andy, if you fail to bring your wife here at the next meeting you die!). Torn between sacrificing his wife and losing his own life, he at once cries, “Biko ni o mma mezi ni” (Please, I have no desire to continue). But Paul retorts, “‘O kwa i si n’ichoro inwe ego?” (I think you said you wanted to be rich). At home, and in a regretful mood, Andy continues to lament, “Paul akowasiro m ife a otu m ga-esi ghota ya ovuma” (Paul did not explain this thing in a way I would have understood it well).

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At last Merit’s ritual murder is effected by Andy. Andy becomes wealthy, but he never sees peace again. The ghost of Merit torments him at every turn, especially on momentous occasions in which he is the chief celebrant. At the traditional marriage rites of Ego, his next wife, Merit’s ghost appears and Andy collapses. At the ceremony in which he is to be made a chief of Enuani clan, the ghost of his first wife appears again. At a contract-signing event between his own company and another, he disappears into the street and thereafter turns mad. The other virtuous women in Living in Bondage are Tina, the ex-

prostitute, Andy’s mother and Auntie. Tina (Rita Nzelu) is the prostitute who should have been murdered at the shrine of wealth andpower but for the grace of God. Immediately after that experience, she abandons prostitution and returns to preach to her former fellow prostitutes. In the end she is Andy’s saviour as she organizes her church group to pray for and deliver him from the troubling visitations of Merit’s spirit. Andy’s mother (Grace Ayozie) is the simple, graceful village woman who easily sees goodness in others. She recognises the seraphic in Merit and condemns her son for planning to take another wife just a few months after Merit’s inexplicable death. The huge sum of 20,000 Naira Andy doles out as a gift to:his parents is flatly rejected as tainted while his request to travel back to Lagos with his younger sister is quickly turned down. In Taboo by Tony Meribe and Daniel Oluigbo, the principled female is Ijeoma (Rosemary Honnah). She is the only child of the prosperous Igwe of Amadike. Mama Obinna (Grace Ayozie) is another devoted woman, but her role is largely minor and ephemeral. Ijeoma is in love with Obinna, despite his being the son of a poor outcast. Obinna (Kenneth Okonkwo) is intelligent and brave, but has no one to sponsor his higher education until he performs the heroic feat of saving the Igwe (Ijeoma’s father) from the hands of assassins hired by Jonah (Daniel Oluigbo), with the active connivance of Dorcas (Ngozi Nwaneto), the Igwe’s second wife. Thereafter, the wealthy traditional ruler sends him to the University of Lagos where he reads Law while Ijeoma’s university studies, also in Law, are simultaneously taking place in Britain.

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The love between Ijeoma and Obinna is not allowed to blossom because of social and cultural incompatibility. Their plight reminds one of Clara and Obi’s in Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease‘ except that in the film the disadvantaged partner is the male. The effort by Ijeoma to realize their love brings Obinna into conflict with prince Ibe, alias Ibe Government. Ibe, himself a magnate, is the son of another wealthy traditional ruler, the Igwe of Amaogugu (Oliver Akanite, a famous Nigerian Highlife musician who goes by the name, Oliver de Coque). Ibe’s background notwithstanding, Ijeoma is slow to accept him. In his anxiety to eliminate any rivalry and increase his chances of acceptance by Ijeoma, Ibe pays thugs to spray Obinna with acid, to beat him and tie him up, and slowly murder him while Ibe’s people are performing Ijeoma’s traditional marital rites in Amadike. In spite of these machinations against Obinna, he manages to arrive, virtually half-dead, at the scene of the marital ceremony, as Ijeoma is reluctantly walking towards Ibe to offer him the traditional glass of palmwine as evidence of her acceptance of him. Ibe rushes out to confront Obinna, carrying in his hand atable knife. He is angry that Obinna has appeared despite all the efforts to eliminate him. Obinna leaps high and grabs his antagonist, and in the ensuing

struggle, kills Prince Ibe with the table knife. Jjeoma is the lover par excellence. In spite of Prince Ibe’s lavish display of his wealth, especially at the reception he organises for her in Lagos, her love is reserved for Obinna. But in the face of tradition and parental insistence, she is forced to accept a marriage despite her own feelings. This is clearer when, upon sighting her half-dead lover, she drops the glass of palmwine she is traditionally required to pres-

ent to her suitor (Ibe). At an earlier reception organised by her father to welcome her home after her successful studies abroad, Ijeoma had stopped dancing and leapt into the waiting hands of Obinna who had come to witness the ceremony. As this happened, there was a dead silence because a free-born (Ijeoma) was not supposed to embrace an osu (Obinna). The horror of the act was marked by the suddenness of the musical instruments falling silent.

“Chinua Achebe: No Longer at Ease. (London: Heinemann, 1960).

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Evil Passion by Solomon Eze and Philip Phil-Ebosie has only one major virtuous female character, Lynda, who is Jerry’s wife. Lynda, a mother of a boy and two twin girls, possesses the attributes of love, kindness, tenderness and modesty for which Merit is known in Living in Bondage. Incidentally, the two roles are played by Nnenna Nwabueze, who on each occasion loses out to demonic ambition and to the wiles of an insatiable female competitor. Jerry (Tobechukwu Anadi) is a young businessman who knows how to attract big bank loans on which his business investments rest. For the first half of the film, he lives happily with Lynda who is a model wife and mother. She advises Jerry against taking a proposed loan saying, “Onye ji ugwo adighi eli nli o di ya n’aru ovuma” (a debtor does not eat food and comfortably enjoy it). But Jerry calls the shots and so has his way. However, when Jerry is caught in Ijeoma Okeke’s snare, things change for the worse for Lynda. Ijeoma (Ngozi Nwosu), an older call girl, has secured a love potion for any man of means who may come her way. Soon after Jerry takes this portion in a dish of rice and chicken prepared by Ijeoma, he returns to his household a strange husband anda hostile father. In the end he marries Ijeoma, drives Lynda into the children’s room, and, in order to satisfy his new wife, retrieves the car Lynda uses to convey the children to school, turning it over to the new bride. Not long after, Ijeoma poisons the meal served by Lynda and meant for their husband. — While ensuring that Jerry eats her own food, Ijeoma gives Lynda’s poisoned food to the family dog; it dies in a matter of minutes. Jerry, who has been eating, is horrified by the sudden death of the dog, and he quickly orders Lynda and her children to leave the house at once. In The Curse by Uchegbulam Nwabuisi and Tony Madugba, our sympathy goes to Nneka (Lynda Nwoke). Married to Emeka Nduka (Tony Madugba) for fifteen years without issue, her husband is on the verge of bringing in another wife, Telma (Ndidi-Tina Anene). Nneka advises Emeka against this, cautioning patience and insisting that God will answer their prayers in their lifetime. But Emeka mocks her, calling her “mama ndidi” (the mother of patience). Emeka sets out to marry Telma, one of his female employees with whom he has had occasional sexual affairs and who is now pregnant with his child.

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Telma’s parents are in the end willing to let her get married to a man who is already married on the condition that she first give birth to the baby. This is in conformity with the Igbo custom which is articulated by Jumbo, Telma’s father, thus: “anaghi eke nwanyi di n’afo ime” (a woman is not given in marriage while pregnant). Soon after, Emeka takes ill. At the point of death, only a confession of his past life saves him. He confesses to having strangled a girl

(Chile) whose education he had paid for in the hope that they would get married. But Chile rejected him, abused him, and even slapped him on the face. In exasperation, he inadvertently killed her, ran away and refused to identify himself as the killer. The elders of the village gathered and placed a curse on the murderer. It is this curse which has disturbed Emeka Nduka’s fifteen years of marital life. As soon as he confesses and performs the ritual cleansing, the curse is lifted, and his wife becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy. A short

while earlier Telma had lost her own baby because of her intense anger and murderous feelings of revenge against her erstwhile lover and suitor. | The portrayal of the virtuous woman in these films accords well with the Igbo value system. The Igbo believe that there are bad and good women; that a bad woman is a curse to a man, and may cause

his downfall. The virtuous woman, on the other hand, is a gift to a man. A tragic man blessed with a lovely woman may not realise it. Because he does not realise it, he ignores her good qualities and embraces the devilish woman. The Igbo believe that one who fails to realise what is good comes face-to-face with evil. Each of the virtuous women in these films is patient, painstaking and humble. She is often on the receiving end. But in the end her suffering or even death is avenged by Karma as in the case of Merit, Lynda and Nneka.

The “villainous” here refers to those characters whose acts and utterances depict them as vicious, reprobate and dishonourable. Based on the available Igbo-language video films, one may easily assert that there are more villainous characters than exalted or virtuous ones. The fact is that in Igbo oral and written literatures, the villainous female is quite common. In Igbo folktales and proverbs, the Onit-

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sha Market Literature,’ and even in the works of modern Igbo writers such as Cyprian Ekwensi and early Achebe, women are largely portrayed as sexual objects, prostitutes, wicked, lazy and weak. Such women end up miserably, especially when they challenge family life or seek personal independence. In Kenneth Nnebue’s Living in Bondage, Caro, Ego, Chinyere, Chief Omego’s termagant wives and a collection of unapologetic

prostitutes are depicted as despicable females. Caro is the epitome of female vileness. She worships wealth. When Chinyere runs to her with Andy’s money she praises her, saying: “Eji m alike umunwanyi obi ha kporoakpo dike ke Caro” (I like women whose hearts are as dry as Caro’s). What matters to her in a contrived marriage or love affair is not the discomfort it brings, but the affluence that such associations ensure. Caro tells Chinyere, “J lutara ezigbo di, i nwere moto ..., i fere fepu, i fere feda” (You’ve got a good husband, you have a car to yourself ... you fly out overseas, you fly back). But Chinyere assures her spinster friend that all that glitters is not gold; “Hapu ndidum ahu nwere ego ... Ha ka mma n’enyi, o wughi na di” (Forget about those men who have money ... They are better as lovers than as husbands). Caro poisons Chinyere in order to appropriate the latter’s box of fresh currency notes that she steals from Andy’s secret room; it is there that Lucifer mints money for people like Andy who have embraced the devil as their source of strength and wealth. While Chinyere succumbs to the poison, Caro dies in a motor accident as she attempts to escape with Chinyere’s loot. Earlier, Merit had quarrelled with Caro as the latter had advised her to accept her boss’s sexual advances in the office: “As enyi mmadu, i hu na boss unu ahu, jide

ya, jishie ya ike. Ego ya bana gi n'aka, o gawu ego Merit” (As a

° Cf.: Chidi Ikonne: “Women in Igbo Folktales.” Nka: A Journal of the Arts (Owerri) 1 (1983), pp. 40-46, or Ch.S of Chaakpi: A Study of Igbo Folktales. (Owerri. Pen Paper Publications, 1992), pp. 85-97, in which women are shown to be the butt of Igbo society. See also J.0.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada: “The Old Woman in Igbo Proverbi al Lore.” Southern Folklore 46:3 (1989), pp. 241-254, where the female image is identified as negatively portrayed in Igbo culture. T.U. Njoku: West African Popular Literature: A Feminist perspective. PhD Seminar, School of Humanities, Abia State University, Uturu, 29th June, 1995 (unpublished), asserts that in the Onitsha pamphlet literature “women are shown to be deceitful, hypocritical, cunning and criminal” (p.19).

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friend, you see that boss of yours, hold him, hold him firmly. If his money enters your hands, it is now Merit’s money), Not even Merit’s bashfulness could stop her from asking, “/he ahu o nwere mita?” (That thing — sexual organ — has it a metre? ie., for recording when it has been used or not). The ensuing quarrel leads Caro to resolve to wreck Merit’s marriage. She visits her lover, Paul (Andy’s friend) in the company of Ego. This scene is contrasted with Merit’s agony as she returns home after abandoning her job as Ichie Million’s secretary. Later in the night she awaits Andy’s return, but Andy and Ego are enjoying themselves in Paul’s flat. Ego’s interest in Andy is decidedly materialistic. She asks Caro, “Nwa hi, Andy, o ji kwa nchoncho?” (That chap, Andy, has he some money?). Ego takes Merit’s place, but not for long. At her traditional wedding to Andy, Andy collapses as a result of the sudden appearance of Merit’s ghost. Ego abandons the marriage but not without stealing Andy’s two million naira while he is in hospital, recovering from his nuptial day trance. Caro, aware that Ego has left Andy, brings him Chinyere as a replacement. Like Ego, Chinyere’s love for Andy’s wealth is quite overt. The climax of this desire comes when Andy, tired of a life in bondage, decides to hang himself. He puts the suicidal rope round his neck and prays to God for forgiveness. Chinyere, who is supposed to be asleep, manages to mutter an “amen” at the end of Andy’s prayers. Enraged, Andy removes the rope from his neck, descends on her and administers a thorough beating. Okechukwu Ogunjiofor’s Circle of Doom, as the title indicates, has doomed characters, male and female. The prominent females in the film are Uzumma (Nwokedi’s wife), K.C’s mother, Ifeoma (K.C. Bombay’s wife) and Stainless (The Boss’s lover). None of them has any redeeming features. Uzumma’s husband, Nwokedi, goes to prison in place of K.C. Bombay, his elder brother. But while her husband is still in prison she is impregnated by K.C. (played by Kanayo Kanayo). The script writer, Okechukwu Ogunjiofor, tries to show that Uzumma becomes K.C’s victim because of need, similar to Isidore Okpewho’s depiction of Aku who suffers at the hands of Toje in The

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Last Duty (1976).* However, the effort to exonerate Uzumma rubs off when we recall the coldness with which she visits Nwokedi, her husband, in prison. At that meeting it is as if she has made up her mind to find other males since she has so long to wait for Nwokedi. Each time she resists K.C., it is not out of regard for her imprisoned husband, but because he, Nwokedi, will find out. When K.C. insists that “gi ni m ifon, ma ni gi okwogho” (if you give me this thing — sex — I give you money) as a ground for writing off Uzumma’s mother’s hospital bill, one expects Uzumma to reject this type of assistance, but she does not. Instead, like Adisa, in Festus Iyayi’s Violence, who follows Obofun to bed in her bid to find enough money with which to settle Idemudia’s (Adisa’s husband’s) hospital bill, Uzumma is taken to bed where her humanity is desecrated by K.C. Bombay, the brother-in-law.’ The negative portrayal of some of the women in the Igbo video films is a reflection of both the Igbo world-view about the power of the villainous female and an incorporation of the global notion of the modern woman as one who is ambitious, cunning, devilishly dexterous and vicious. Her tool for wreaking havoc is lodged between her thighs, and because men are so vulnerable to the wiles of women, they are often hoodwinked into satisfying these villainous women to the detriment of other women who are morally upright and reasonably tolerant of other females. Thus Ijeoma’s headlong jump into the Jerry family destabilizes that family, and in particular thwarts Lynda’s life in Evil Passion. jeoma not only causes Lynda’s dismissal from her home, she alienates Uncle Barry and Sam, Jerry’s brothers. In Part ] of Evil Passion, she promises to keep her relationship with Chuks even on the eve of her traditional wedding to Jerry. And in Part II of the film, Barry runs into her as she emerges from a bathroom with another lover. Again having compelled Jerry to accept her as a partner in his busines s ventures, Ijeoma sets out later by hiring assassins. Finally Jerry’s eyes are opened. It is now that he heads back to Lynda who has sent * Isidore Okpewho: The Last Duty. (London: Longman, 1976). ’ Festus Iyayi: Violence. (London: Longman, 1979).

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their twins to live with relatives as a result of financial hardship. Here the scales have fallen off Jerry’s eyes and, like the prodigal son, he must abandon his vagrant ways and return to an ordered life, to Lynda’s bosom where he finds warmth, safety and true affection. In Taboo, there are archetypal figures and a deliberate patterning of plot and character. In this film, Dorcas (Ngozi Nwaneto) is the femme fatale. Although she is the second wife, she dominates the Igwe household, alienating the first wife and virtually making the third her maid. She complicates the politics of Amadike by first backing a newly rich member of the village in his bid for a chieftaincy title, and soon after pitching her tent with Jonah, the president of Amadike Development Union and the rival of the newly rich. At the height of her amorous relationship with Jonah, Dorcas receives money from him in order to have her husband eliminated, thus paving the way for Jonah’s eventual ascension to the Igwe’s throne. There is an obvious biblical reference in her effort to compel Obinna to be her lover, an offer which the young Obinna refuses. In the true spirit of the biblical Potiphar, she lies about Obinna — the Joseph figure — and claims that the latter had sought to rape her. Because of this, Obinna and his parents are driven out of Amadike. But it is Ob-

inna who will save the traditional ruler’s life and thereafter reveal Dorcas’s role in an assassination attempt against him. From the sample of female characters found in these Igbo films, it is clear that more villainous female figures abound than virtuous - ones. The screenwriters of this early period of Igbo-language video film development seem to have followed a similar pattern noticed in many different literatures. According to Mary Anne Fergusson,

“(T]he history of the images of women in Literature ... reflect(s) the masculine vision; masculine images have established our literary tradition and have controlled both male and female authors.” In the specific case of African literature, women in male-authored African novels tend to fall into a specific category of female stereotypes, girlfriends and good-time girls, workers such as secretaries or clerks,

8 Mary Anne Fergusson: Jmages of Women in Literature. (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1973), pp.11-12.

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wives and other male appendages and prostitutes and courtesans.’ Later in 1983, Femi Ojo-Ade was to express a view quite close to

Little’s in this vein: “African literature ls a male-created, maleoriented, chauvinistic art.” With regard to Nigerian literature, C.O. Ogunyemi has accused male writers of regaling the reading public with “stereotypes of female characters: the witch, the faithless woman, the prostitute, the femme fatale, the virago; and those male writers with a romantic disposition dangled women as goddess or as a helpless victim.” What generally constituted the image of women in our literatures has also been employed in Igbo-language video films. So far all the Igbo screenwriters are males who, perhaps, have been influenced by male portrayals of women in literature. Unlike newer Nigerian male writers as well as many women writers whose writings avoid “male chauvinism,” the screenwriters are neither known literary figures nor noteworthy critics who might be conversant with the politics of gender in African scholarship.’? This is not to criticize them nor to underestimate their contribution to Igbo and African contemporary creative arts. But one suspects that what mattered most to these Igbo film makers and producers was the need to present stories which would be realistic, entertaining and reflective of societal mores and values pertaining to women. The general impression one notes of women in these films is that they are envious, devilish, desperate and mean. The virtuous among them are not only few, they are trapped and helpless. Each of them is either the first wife of a misguided husband ° Kenneth Little: The Sociology of Urban (London: Macmillan, 1950), p.7.

Women’s Image in African Literature.

'* Femi Ojo-Ade: “Female Writers, Male Critics.” African Literature Tioday 13 (1983), pp. 158-179; 158. '! Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi: “Women and Nigerian Literature.” Perspectives on Ni. gerian Literature 1400 — The Present. Vol. I, ed. Yemi Ogunbiyi. (Lagos: Guardian Books, 1988), pp.60-67; 61. ' The younger male Nigerian novelists and dramatists of the late 1970s and of the 1980s include Kole Omotoso (dramatist and novelist), Femi Osofisan (dramatist and novelist), Bode Sowande (dramatist and novelist), Ben Okri (novelist) ef.al.; Flora Nwapa (novelist), Buchi Emecheta (novelist), Tess Onwueme (dramatist), Ifeoma Okoye (novelist), Zainab Alkali (novelist) et.al. consitute the female revisionists of female representation in Nigerian literature.

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or a victim of an inflexible tradition. As in the novels of Mariama Ba, “[T]he man withdraws his love for the first wife and gives it to the rustic spoiler who lacks the decency of the premier woman.”? None of the women in the films, except Ijeoma in Taboo, adequately resists the folly of their men. Merit, Lynda and Nneka merely stir our pathos. Like sacrificial lambs, they go to the shrine of slaughter and accept the fate that befalls them. None quits without looking back, none says

“to hell with it.” Although all the major male characters in these films are shown to be deeply engrossed in the indecent acquisition of wealth, the villainous females strive to benefit unduly from this newly acquired wealth without any modicum of self-respect. In Living in Bondage, Ego’s

only credentials as she enters Andy’s life are her sexual prowess, which she flippantly reveals to Caro as they reassess the all-night visit to Paul and Andy. Caro is prepared to do and say anything for money. What she tells Merit and Chinyere about the necessity for money is rather shocking. Chinyere on her own allows herself to be ruled by Caro: Chinyere is virtually used by Caro to rob Andy of his money and then is killed by her, but Caro herself is stopped by providence when she is knocked down by a car. The prostitutes and Chief Omego’s wives are shameless in their quest for males, the one seeking survival and the other supremacy. But each appears sick and pitiable. In The Curse, Telma’s desperation is without modesty. When Emeka comes to present the initial wine to her parents and she is informed about the marital visit, she asks almost immediately if she should get her things ready. Later when Emeka changes his mind, she has no heart to receive the news. Desperation drives her to a charmist and the engagement of assassins, even as the pregnancy which links her to Emeka yields a stillborn baby.

The same can be said of Dorcas in Taboo who is prepared to kill her husband and marry his antagonist. When she is discovered and asked to clear her name by picking a lobe of kolanut from the Amadike dish (onuma Amadike) if she is innocent of the accusation, '3 J.0.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada: ““One Wife Be for One Man’. Mariama Ba’s Doctrine for Matrimony.” Modern Fiction Studies 37:3 (1991), pp.561-573; 568.

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her effort to avoid the oath item is ridiculous. She will not eat from the dish because “mua bu onye uka (I am a church goer). I am a Christian. I can’t do it.” The code-switch in such a serious accusation reveals the struggle she experiences between truth and falsehood. From now onwards her prattling, for which she is known, is finished. She is led to Amaeke where her head will be shaved before she is ignominously sent away. The mass appeal of these video films far outweighs writings in Igbo as well as those in English. Their contents share much with the popular Onitsha Market Literature of the 1940s and 1950s. Indeed, Onitsha is also the cradle of Igbo video film production just as it pioneered the earliest writings in Igbo, especially those of the late Chidozie Ogbalu and his contemporaries. For the time being, the improvement of the female image in Igbo films awaits two possibilities: either male screenwriters emerge, who are more sympathetic to feminist concerns, as with recent African literature, or there will appear women filmmakers who are naturally better equipped for such an improvement. What some African female filmmakers are currently accomplishing in their own cultural milieux may need to be tried in the Igbo matrix, for, as Mbye Cham remarks, “some of these women film-makers bring to these issues and topics a particular female and

gender sensibility whose absence in previous male-directed films severely handicapped the filmic discourse on these issues and topics.’”"4

'* Mbye Cham: “African Women and Cinema: A Conversation with Anne Mungai.” Research in African Literatures 25:3 (1994), pp.93-104.

Speaking for Women Interview with Anne Mungai by Frances Harding

There are not many women film directors in Africa and even fewer in East Africa, but Anne Mungai is one of them. Her first full-length film is Saikati the story of a young girl who wants to become a doctor but whose uncle just wants her to marry and bring him some dowry. This theme of the young woman thwarted by established practice reflects Anne Mungai’s abiding concern at the pressure placed on young girls and women to remain in traditional rdles as homemaker and childbearer. She is concerned with what she refers to as the “image of the girl-child,” and to challenge the intimidation of the “girl-child” right from her early years as she grows up in the company of her brothers, father, uncles and later her husband. She considers the ‘timidness and lack of assertiveness” which characterise women in her society to be a product of this culturally validated network of female dependency on males. Her first film was a 16-minute colour film called Wekefa, the story of a young man tor between following modern life and traditional life. I then asked her what was the outcome and she laughed: “It is about circumcision — he decides in favour of custom.” After this, because film is expensive, she made docu-drama videos on women (the co-operative movement) and children (Christianity) in 1989 and 1990.

This interview was held in Hotel Ambassadeur, Nairobi, Kenya, on September 25, 1994.

With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema; ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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FRANCES HARDING

What have you done since your videos of 1989

ANNE MUNGAI: I started working on Saikati — I wrote the script in 1990 and shot it in 1991, then did the editing in 1992. It lasts 90 minutes — and it was launched in July 1992. In 1993, I did another short video on women and development in the rural areas, where from the time they wake up, they have to go to the garden to till the land, grow food; and then after growing food they have to go and fetch water for the family, and then they have to go and get firewood, and they have to cook again, and they have to feed the children. So what are you working on now? I did another video on street children for UNICEF; and out of this film on street children, a street theatre has been formed. I’m also

working on the sequel to Saikati. I have the synopsis and treatment. Now I am looking for money to make it into a script and to eventually shoot it. I also have another script on women — on young girls — that is ready now for shooting. I put in my own money. The thing is actually to motivate young girls in Africa to be more assertive. Because when you are brought up, a woman is not supposed to be active — but always supposed to be in the background. Because of that, most women grow up very intimidated — intimidated by brothers, by every man you meet; so this script is written for young girls whom I am targetting to help grow out of their timidness and be more assertive. I am looking for funds from organisations that are interested in women and the girl-child. The image of the girl-child. This timidness and lack of assertiveness has a lot to do with our culture. Have you been influenced by other African filmmakers?

Well, we regard Sembène as the father of African film. He has also personally inspired me a lot — especially when I went to the Film Festival in Ouagadougu. That's where I presented my very first film. That was the first time I actually met African filmmakers in 1989. That really created a lot of desire in me to make films because I had been struggling alone. There aren’t many film makers in East Africa — hot only women even men — so it almost looked like I wouldn’t make a breakthrough. But actually when I went to FESPACO and

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met so many West African filmmakers and we talked about the problems of the African filmmaker, I realised I was not alone, and that the problems I experienced were not unique to me. I learnt that although they had made it — because now most of them are very successful filmmakers — at the beginning it was just as tough for them as it was for me. I remember talking to Sembéne and Idrissa Ouédraogo. Idrissa told me that next time he meets me he doesn’t want me to talk so much about problems but just to tell him that I have made afilm. It doesn’t matter what it looks like or what problems I encountered, but just at least to have something I have made — because problems are always there. He also told me he understood that because I was a woman and because of the African culture, I would face many problems. But he told me not to concentrate so much on the problems, but on making sure that you have a script, and that you have made a film. He told me: don’t worry so much whether it will be like mine — of high quality — the most important thing is to begin and as you move on to your second and third film, you become more and more perfect. | There was also the Secretary-General of the Pan-African Film Festival, Phillippe Sawadogo. When he was addressing African filmmakers, he really encouraged us, saying there is a time in life when you have the energy to make films, and you should use that time and that energy to make films, instead of just all the time meeting and talking so much about our problems. Of course they understood the problems are there, but we should talk less about the prob_lems and actually concentrate on writing our scripts, because you only become a better writer by writing more scripts and making more films. That really challenged me and when I came to East Africa

where there aren’t so many filmmakers, I just put it into practice. I just started writing and writing more and more. It looked difficult but using the training I got at the film school — and also there was a German film script expert who had come to the Institute and he coached us on how to. write a good screenplay or script. So I started writing and writing. Now I enjoy scriptwriting but at first I didn’t like it. I believe what the African cinema has done for West Africa can also be done for East Africa. You need communication to go hand-in-

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hand with development, and sometimes I see film as a mirror where people can look and laugh at themselves, learn from their mistakes and improve from them. Most of the films I make, although they are entertainment, they have realities, facts and problems in them that face people in my society — especially women. As a filmmaker and as a woman, this is contributing to the development of my society and my people. Women work very hard: they have to get up early, go to the shamba, collect water, collect firewood. When the film on women in development is shown to men they appreciate how hard a woman works. It looks like what it is, their normal rôle, which is taken for granted, but seeing it on the screen men appreciate it is hard, that the women are’ really working hard. Men in our society have been told that girls should go to school and get education, pursue a career and come and help their society, yet when that is said in a Chiefs barassa, or in a newspaper, it doesn’t hit people as much as when they see it on screen. The moving image in film is really powerful in development. When Saikati was being screened I was showing a young girl’s desire to become a doctor, but the family want her to get married so that somebody can pay dowry for her and the family become rich. When Saikati gets married, how many cows, how many goats will her uncle get? But Saikati is not looking at her life like that. She wants to become a doctor so that she can help her people. During the showings of Saikati people realise what is being done to our girls, forcing them to get married, even although they too are people who have desires and ambitions. After the screening of the video film on street children — we call them si/e — a number of women came and said, what can we do to

help? Its not that Kenyans were not previously aware of street children, they are, but again it is why are they there? Maybe their parents are lazy; it is not our problem. And it’s not that they never see these children, they do, but using the power of the moving image, people realise this problem is in our society and yet we are not doing anything about it. When you present your picture, you can also present suggestions of what people can do to solve the problem. So that having seen on the film that the children can sing, that they are intelli-

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gent and have composed their own songs and poems, from there I got support and formed a theatre group. And a number of women volunteered to work with these children and help them. A powerful moving image hits people instantly and sticks in their minds — so that rather than just talking, talking, people do something. Do you feel that the main rôle for African film is to show its problems to African people?

Yes. The main rôle African film will have, apart from entertaining people, is to show the reality of the problems facing Africa — and maybe offering solutions. And even if Africa has its share of problems it also has its share of laughter, good harvest and good food. Some African filmmakers have recently suggested that African film Should also address the issue of pure entertainment — that film should not always be used as a didactic tool, but should reflect African life as it is.

Yes. Sometimes people need just to go to the cinema and laugh. But I believe we can also treat problems in a comedy form. People can laugh, but they are laughing at themselves while they are being entertained. If you are laughing at a problem, actually you are laughing at yourself, but in the end a message can be communicated, so that when you leave the cinema, you are thinking of that problem and what can be done to address it. I don’t think we should be like Hollywood where they make films just to make people relax, because _ Africa has many problems that need to be tackled. African filmmakers should turn their problems into comedy but not pure entertainment, because if we just make films that entertain, then we are going to be running away from our problems and trying to be like Hollywood — and we are not. In the portrayal of women in African films by African filmmakers, what is your favourite in an African film?

Personally I like to see African women in an African film married. Actually that’s what made me want to become afilmmaker, because when I was young and in school — of course at this time there were no African filmmakers — but in the films done by Hollywood, the Afri-

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can women always played a very minor and funny rôle that I never understood as a child, because I had grown up seeing my mother struggle, seeing women in my society struggle so hard and helping so much in society. The kind of life I knew about women in my society was not what I saw on the screen and it disturbed me. What are these people trying to show, I wondered? It also made me feel that when I grew up, I would make films that portray the correct image of African

women. I am not trying to say that African women are angels or they do super things, but the really typical African woman — and I might give my mother as an example — is that they are really strong, not just crying women. Even African films made by African men still see women in the traditional réle — supposedly weak and with a weak role in the film — crying or involved in some kind of problem which they cannot get out of. But I would like to see films of a strong African woman who struggles or is confronted by a problem and makes it. I saw it when I was growing up. As you will see in some of our history books when Kenya was fighting for its independence. Although on the surface it looked as if it was the men who were doing all the fighting, in fact the women played a very important réle, carrying food to the fighters or carrying messages. They organised it all, survived it all — and they knew how to take care of the children! This is the kind of image I would like to see — women who are strong, able to organise things — not a woman who gets pregnant and doesn’t know what to do next, so there she is with the baby — she has a problem!

Can you give me an example of an African film in which women are represented as weaker? Tilai has both the strong and the weak. I think Tilai tried to balance. But see how Sembène in his film Xa/a about corrupt African leaders portrays the women as just there for the man — because he had money he was just getting any woman he wanted. I would have liked to maybe show one strong woman because I don’t believe all women

just succumb.

So you see the youngest wife in Xala as a weak character?

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Even the three of them, I didn’t really see who was presented as a | strong character.

You didn't feel the first wife was? She was, but not as strong as I would have liked.

How would you criticise the rôle of the second wife who was so economically independent? She saw that the marriage was going to break up and sorted herself out economically very quickly and took off. Wasn't this the act of a strong woman? Yes, it was the act of a strong woman, but to have a chance to confront her husband background. I would have liked a scene man and they sorted it out, because it still — women

I would have liked her also and not just doing it in the where she confronted the goes back to the same réle

somehow can’t talk to a man. They can’t face a man, it’s

always in the background, so I would have liked to see a scene where she actually confronts this man and they talk. A lot of my students feel that the strong female character in Xala is the daughter. She makes a lot of decisions — she decides to speak in Wolof, not French, she wears African clothes, and she stays with her father at the end during his humiliation, so she is a very uncompromising character. Yes. I would like to see more characters like that.

Another interesting younger female character is in Yaaba. That young girl is a very strong young girl. Do you think the old woman, Yaaba herself, is presented as a strong character? What do you think of that storyline where the woman has been made an outcast and the men of the village go and burn her house and make things worse for her so much so that she actually dies by the end of the film?

Well that’s what happens. That’s why I say, create stronger images of women; you should show the women fighting and standing up to men. Because in most of the more films that are made the men get away with it and the women are the victims. I’m always seeing African women as weak. Have you been able to meet other women film makers?

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Yes I met Flora M’mbugu-Schelling, who is married to a Swiss man, they live in Washington now [ed., Virginia]. But I know that when she was in Tanzania she made two films — one is Kumi Kucha, the

other is These Hands. | didn’t manage to see Kumi Kucha, but I saw These Hands. It was about women saying that with these hands, the hands that God has given them, they can do a lot — feed their children and farm. I haven’t met Safi Faye from Senegal — I am told she is the first African woman film maker. How do you feel women in Africa could be given the chance to become more involved in film making? I think it’s a question of finance. Getting money for making films ismuch harder for women than it is for men. When you want to make a film you either get a sponsor or you get a loan from a bank. In the lending institutions, certainly here in Kenya, fortunately or unfortunately, the bank managers are men — and you a woman beingafilmmaker director. First of all they look at you as a big joke — as if you are joking — as if to say what are you talking about? So the bank manager just looks at you as ifyou are a joke?

You can see at the back of their mind — although they don’t say it — it is “are you married or are you not”? And if you are, you should have come with your husband. Culturally you have to be a wife of some- . body, so you are the wife of so-and-so, or you go there as the sister of so-and-so, or as the daughter of so-and-so. So you must be the wife of some known man, or the sister of some known man, or the daughter of some known man. So you go with that identity and I never like to do that. The moment I see that this is the situation I just leave because it is very, very offensive. I was talking to one bank manager, not officially, just at a party — and I said to him maybe now that you are not in the bank you might answer a question that really disturbs me: Why do you menmanagers, the moment that a woman walks in your office and she wants money, never look at her as a person and ask where does she work, what is it she does, and is she eligible for this loan, and will she be able to pay it back? Why at the back of your mind do you have questions like — whose daughter is she? Whose wife is she?, or whose

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sister is she? He admitted it was true and happens automatically, not something that you plan. They do it without even knowing, unconsciously, it is so automatic. Because culturally women have always played the to try and awareness. with those

background rôle, without even thinking. He was asking me understand, but if that is the case then men need more If a woman walks into an office don’t start looking at her special signs.

Could you make a film about how men treat women in contemporary society?

Well, if get money. Where do I get money? Men will be head of the institutions. They will lend money to men. If I go there, then I need a man to be following me — either my brother or somebody else, but I have to go with a man. When I was looking for money, as a woman they did not understand why I was borrowing money instead of my husband. I recognised their problem, so I asked my husband to go. Immediately he started talking they now saw it made sense, but when I was talking it was not making sense! So even as we talk about gender and culture, men need more and more awareness because they are not even conscious of these things. Well, these are learned attitudes and other attitudes can be learned.

It starts from the time someone is very small. Because you find that when you both work — and stress happens to both men and women — when you come back home it is only the woman who has to be understanding that the man has had a busy day. Maybe what a woman also goes through at work also needs to be shown on a film! So that when she comes home she is not like a supermachine. That’s what is assumed. It doesn’t matter what work you do, it is assumed that the minute you get home you transform yourself immediately and start the other rôles, whereas the man now has time to rest and read his newspaper because he has had a hard day at work. It is not easy, there is no encouragement. People always look at you with a question mark — what are you doing in a man’s field? I don’t see why filmmaking becomes a man’s field, because it’s a creative field. Painting is a creative art, as soon as you take a brush you are just creating like a person making a film — so I have never

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understood why it is comfortable for a woman to tell you that she is a painter or that she writes but not that she makes films, because it is actually a creative art field — it is only that it is a different mode of creativity. It is just that more women should be encouraged. Sometimes men think that when you are a woman, trying to make films, you are trying to compete with them. But that is not true. I personally have never wanted, in fact it has never occurred in my mind, that I might be competing. I want to make a film, something inspires me — maybe a problem in society or something that I want to make a film about. It has nothing to do with competition. I just feel, maybe this street children problem is a Kenyan problem and we just can’t continue pretending that it is not there. So I am inspired because Iwant to work on street children — not because I want to compete with a man. Here is a problem in my society, and I am seeing the children, and I’m a mother, and I’m a woman, and I’m touched — and I’m a filmmaker — and I want to portray that problem. Then the moment | finish this film maybe a man is looking at me — what am I doing in the mainstream? I go to the rural area. I see all these years have gone and I see women are still going on with the same battle — life has not improved for them. Even if there is modern technology and the world is developing, yet these women in the rural areas are still walking long distances — the thing I saw as a small child — they are still carrying water on their heads, they are still collecting firewood, they are still doing the same réles when the world is supposed to be changing, but it is not changing for these women and so who will speak for them? I speak for them in my films. I just want their problems to be known and have something to be done — not because I want to show a man I can really make afilm.

Have you had experiences where you have actually been challenged while you have been filming? Because you are a woman? When I’m on location? Yes. There have been many challenges, and again it has to do with culture because when you are making a film you find that whether you like it or not, most of your crew will be men. So you find a cameraman is a man, the soundman is a man,

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most of the people you work with are men, but it means that if you are directing the film then as a woman you are going to give instructions to these men, and sometimes you are not going to do it very politely, because if you do, they may not do the right thing — and first of all, as you are a woman, they are even doubting if you know what you are doing. I have experienced it on location more than once. You want a certain shot, you want something done —I don’t know whether it happens subconsciously without them knowing — you find that even your cameraman instead of taking good advice just argues with you. I think just because you are a woman he just wants to show you that because you are a woman and he is a man he knows better. So you see that even your own crew are not looking at you as their director, but as a woman who happens to be there and they know better than you. It becomes hard when you are directing to get the kind of shots you want because they always think they know better than you. As a woman I think you subconsciously feel you shouldn’t even be telling them what to do which again affects a production. You should go out there and if your director is a woman just forget that she is woman, just that you have a production to do, and you have a director, and each has to play the best réle and come out with a perfect film — which IJ have found very difficult to do.

So is there a moment in Saikati for instance where you can look at it and say “that is not the shot I wanted”? because such and such happened? There are many shots — even some where I’m on location and they even play tricks on you. I have had an instance where a battery charger was hidden when I was going out shooting. But it was just to see what you are going to do as a woman — but as I say, I don’t know if they do it consciously or subconsciously or deliberately, but I know that that challenges you as a woman. What are you going to do? I have not had a production where I have not been challenged — where a problem has not been caused just to see if I am going to break down and cry. And of course if I did break down and cry they would just laugh and say we knew she could not make a film. This would be just deliberate, to prove as a woman you can’t stand hardship. So I don’t

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cry. I try and find out what to do. I had one instance in which the battery and the charger disappeared — then of course it was like let’s see what will she do? I have an instance where I came from shooting very far away. Two tapes were not recorded at all. Again it was, let’s see what she will do? There are many instances so you just have to know how to solve it — so you don’t panic. OK, you get annoyed — you make noise — but the most important thing is how do you come out of that problem? What I normally do is get angry. I make my noise, but I start thinking of how to overcome the problem — there is no battery, there is no charger, but we are going out to shoot and those people are waiting. OK, I have this production to finish — what do I do next?

I think because of that, slowly, slowly their attitude towards me is changing. So as a woman, to make a breakthrough, you have to be very, very strong and just know that they are actually watching you. If a woman is strong and doesn’t cry and doesn’t give up — that’s the kind of woman they don’t know. So that is how I would encourage women filmmakers — don’t just break down and cry, do something about the problem.

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Nouveau regard, nouvelle parole: le cinéma d’ Assia Djebar Qu'est-ce que “tourner” pour moi, sinon tenter de regarder à chaque fois du premier regard, d'écouter à la première écoute?

Assia Djebar ' L’indépendance acquise en 1962, au bout de sept longues années de lutte contre la France, les Algériens sortant victorieux de la guerre anti-coloniale n’ont pu imaginer la nouvelle période de violence qui déchire leur pays à l’heure actuelle. Opposant les islamistes au régime autoritaire, cette guerre fratricide non-déclarée compte des milliers de morts civils. Si les deux côtés sont coupables de semer la violence, le peuple algérien, pris,entre deux feux, en est la seule et véritable victime. Fidèles au rêve démocratique, de nombreux écrivains algériens prônent une société plus ouverte et libre que celle d’aujourd’hui. Assia Djebar, écrivaine algérienne dont la carrière littéraire remonte au début des années de guerre, témoigne surtout pour les femmes algériennes, celles qui soutenaient la lutte, combattaient à côté des hommes, et se sont retrouvées écartées et oubliées par leurs frères, dès que l’indépendance fut acquise. Auteur de huit romans, de nombreuses nouvelles et essais, un recueil de poésie et une pièce de théâtre, Djebar est également cinéaste. Son premier film, La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua (1977) a obtenu le Prix de la critique internationale à la Biennale de Venise en 1979: Le deuxième, un documentaire, La Zerda ou les chants de l'oubli (1980), fut primé au festival ' Assia Djebar: Vaste est la prison. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995), p. 200. ? Cf. Assia Djebar: “La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua.” Les Deux Ecrans 5 (juillet 1978), pp. 45-49. Et aussi Josie Fanon: “Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua.” Demain L'Afrique 1 (septembre 1977), pp.3-5. With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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du cinéma de Berlin en 1982. Le troisième, en cours de réalisation, sera l’adaptation cinématographique du récit autobiographique de Fatma Ait Mansour Amrouche, Histoire de ma vie. A la suite de la publication de Les Alouettes naïves (1967), roman retraçant l’éveil politique et psychologique de la femme algérienne à travers sa participation dans la guerre de libération, l’écrivaine s’est tue. La décision de se consacrer au cinéma n’est venue qu'après quelques années de réflexion et de silence. De cette période, Djebar dit: J'ai pensé sincèrement que je pouvais devenir écrivain arabophone. Mais pendant ces années de silence, j’ai compris qu’il y avait des problèmes de la langue arabe écrite qui ne relèvent pas actuellement de ma compétence. C’est différent au niveau de la langue de tous les jours. C’est pourquoi, faire du cinéma pour moi ce n’est pas abandonner le mot pour l’image. C’est faire de l’image-son. C’est effectuer un retour aux sources au niveau du langage.

Cherchant a briser le cercle dans lequel s’enferme |’écrivain francophone, elle travaillera en arabe dialectal. Dans la quête d’authenticité, l’image et le son deviennent les fils conducteurs effectuant le retour aux sources, permettant à l’artiste de renouer avec sa communauté d’origine. De plus, en ouvrant le champ de réception à un public plus large et varié que celui de ses lecteurs francophones, elle encourage tous les Algériens, l’élite et les masses, à entrer dans le même processus de réflexion. Première Algérienne admise à l'Ecole Normale Supérieure de Sévres, Djebar échappera à la plupart des entraves qui freinaient ses soeurs. Suivant une voie bien différente de celle des Algériennes cloîtrées, elle circulera librement dans l’espace ouvert. Pourtant, dans L'Amour, la fantasia, oeuvre autobiographique et historique, elle révèle son ambigüité envers son itinéraire exceptionnel, et écrit: Soudaine, une réticence, un scrupule me taraude; mon désir n’est-il pas de rester en arrière, dans le gynécée, avec mes semblables? Pourquoi moi? Pourquoi à moi seule, dans la tribu, cette chance?‘

Sans oublier celles qui sont restées en arrière, Djebar entame une double quête: rétablir des liens avec la sororité et entreprendre une * Josie Fanon: “Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua.” Demain L ‘Afrique, no.1, Septembre 1977, p.3.

* Assia Djebar: L ‘amour, la fantasia. (Paris: Jean Lattès, 1985), p.235.

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quête d’identité personnelle. Cette double quête provient d’une double perte: d’une part, de l’intimité qu’elle ressentait lorsque, toute petite, elle était encore entourée de trois générations de femmes; d’autre part, des chuchotements en langue maternelle qui berçaient son enfance. Poursuivant sa quête à travers l’image-son, c’est-à-dire, l’image des femmes de son passé, le son de leurs voix récitant leurs contes et chants traditionnels, Djebar retourne dans sa région natale. Ainsi, sa caméra enregistrera la voix et l’image du monde rural près de Cherchell, sa ville natale située à une centaine de kilomètres à l’ouest d'Alger. Pourtant, Djebar puisera dans l’imaginaire aussi bien que dans le vécu en introduisant un personnage fictif à la découverte du monde de son enfance. Dans La Nouba..., Lila, une Algérienne d’une trentaine d’années, architecte, mère d’une petite fille, revient après quinze ans d’absence dans sa région natale où son mari, vétérinaire, est en convalescence à la suite d’une chute de cheval. Hantée par ses souvenirs de la guerre de libération qui avait coûté la vie à plusieurs membres de sa famille, elle se guérit de ses propres traumatismes en redécouvrant la vie rurale des paysannes. Elle écoute leurs récits de guerre et observe attentivement leur vie quotidienne. Bien que la redécouverte du passé aide Lila à établir un nouveau rapport avec le présent, ce retour sur les lieux de l’enfance accentue l’indifférence et le mutisme de son mari. Au manque de communication au sein du couple, s’ajoute sa déception en Algérie post-coloniale, pays où la domination patriarcale pèse sur la jeune femme. Pendant que Lila se promène, son regard cherche les paysages, les visages, et l’architecture qui lui rappellent son enfance. La caméra pose son regard tantôt sur les femmes rurales et les paysages du Mont Chenoua, tantôt sur la jeune citadine regardant attentivement le

monde qu’elle redécouvre autour d’elle. Suivant Lila dehors, la caméra capte des vuës panoramiques de la montagne du Chenoua ainsi que les collines qui surplombent la mer; elle saisit les couleurs rouge et ocre des rochers de la côte. Elle filme aussi de nombreuses cabanes rurales enfouies derrière leurs haies de roseaux et de figuiers de barbarie. Son oeil prend en plan d’ensemble des paysannes travaillant

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dans les champs et en gros plan des visages de vieilles femmes et de fillettes, celles qui vivent hors de l’enfermement. Par contre, lorsque la caméra suit Lila chez elle, à l’intérieur d’une maison rustique qu’elle habite avec son mari et sa fille, elle capte ses moments de solitude et d’angoisse. Ainsi, les éléments visuels soulignent le double itinéraire de Lila, l’un orienté vers l’extérieur, la rencontre de la citadine avec la vie et les traditions de la femme rurale, l’autre intro-

spectif, une méditation sur la mémoire. | Ces deux parcours, bien distincts l’un de l’autre, se rapprochent par leur valorisation de la voix de la femme et de la musique traditionnelle. Le titre même sert à mettre en relief ces deux éléments, voix et musique, car en arabe dialectal la “nouba” signifie à la fois “parler tour à tour,” (faisant allusion à la conversation des femmes), et “la symphonie andalouse” (composition musicale traditionnelle du Maghreb). Pour que la musique soit partie intégrante au lieu d’être purement accessoire, Djebar choisit de se servir de la symphonie andalouse pour structurer le film. Ainsi, il commence par un istikhbar ou prélude, où tous les thèmes sont annoncés, présente ensuite le meceder, mouvement lent, suivi du btaihi, plus vif, ensuite du nesraf, rêveur et mélancolique, avant de terminer par un khlass, la partie finale où les souvenirs de Lila et ceux des femmes du Mont Chenoua fusionnent dans un rythme rapide. A cette structure de la symphonie andalouse s’ajoute un fond sonore des instruments traditionnels: Notons aussi que le double sens du mot “nouba”: la conversation des femmes et la musique maghrébine, se lie à la double dédicace en tête du film, l’une au compositeur hongrois, Bela Bartok, l’autre à la maquisarde du Chenoua, Yamina Oudai, dite Zoulikha.

S’inspirant

de la musique algérienne recueillie au cours de sa visite algérienne en 1913, Bartok l’incorpora dans ses propres compositions. Introduisant des extraits du compositeur hongrois ainsi que de la musique algérienne dans le film, Djebar explique que la musique est, à son avis, le moyen de communication qui permet aux femmes rurales d’aller vers le monde extérieur. Elle dit: * Assia Djebar: “La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua,” Les deux écrans, no. 5, juillet 1978, p.46.

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Quand je dis communication, je veux dire communication ouverte — donc espoir. Alors, quelqu’un comme Bela Bartok, qui a passé un mois dans les environs de Biska en 1913, et dont la motivation était déja alors de faire des recherches sur la musique populaire dans la région des Aurés essayait d’ ouvrir une porte vers le murmure de l’Algérie profonde. Et moi, telle que m’ont faite ma culture et ma formation personnelle, mais aussi ma mémoire d’enfant et mon rythme vital, je ne vois pour l’instant que la musique pour m’appuyer, je ne vois rien d’autre.‘

D'une part, la dédicace à Bartok valorise la musique du pays et d’autre part, elle remercie le compositeur de son geste d’ouverture sur “le murmure de l’Algérie profonde.” En plus, elle révèle le décalage entre le contexte culturel de Lila, son éducation occidentale, et le contexte traditionnel de la femme rurale du Chenoua.

Si sa mémoire d’enfant ramène la cinéaste à la musique, la mémoire collective lui fait revivre les années de lutte avec les paysannes de sa région natale. D’où l’importance du récit de la vie de Zoulikha, héroïne du Mont Chenoua. Montée au maquis pendant les premières années de la guerre de libération, la maquisarde, en se sacrifiant à la lutte, est entrée dans la légende. Assassinée par l’Armée française, elle continue à vivre dans la mémoire des femmes du Chenoua qui racontent son histoire. La dédicace à Zoulikha rend hommage à toutes les femmes combattantes, mortes ou vivantes, celles dont les noms et les exploits sont connus et celles tombées dans l’oubli et l’anonymat.’ Dans sa quête de l’image-son, Djebar accorde beaucoup d'importance à l’oralité — aux contes, légendes, chansons, poèmes et récits historiques — tous racontés par des femmes, car elle trouve dans la tradition orale des femmes l’expression authentique de la culture algérienne. En fin de compte, le son — la musique et la voix — exprime l’âme de l’Algérie profonde, la nourrit et la fait connaître au delà de ses limites géographiques. Tout à fait à l’aise dans son rapport au son, Djebar fait preuve de ses compétences en musique, en introduisant sa propre composition, musique et paroles, dans ce film $ Jean Delmas: “Assia Djebar: regarder et écouter les femmes,” Jeune Cinéma, no. 116,

Février 1979, p.4. ? Pour une étude des femmes dans la guerre, voir deux ouvrages de Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne: Femmes au combat. (Alger: Rahma, 1993), et Des femmes dans la guerre d'Algérie. (Paris: Karthala, 1994).

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soigneusement structuré d’après la nouba andalouse. Pourtant, en tant que cinéaste femme arabe, son rapport à l’image est problématique, surtout lorsque celle-ci provient d’un regard volé sur l’espace inter-

dit. Assia Djebar est originaire d’une société où le patriarcat, invoquant l’Islam, interdit toute représentation visuelle de l’être humain; le maître du sérail avait le seul droit du regard, et la femme, visage et corps cachés, marchait les yeux baissés. Ceci dit, Djebar ne peut pas filmer sans s’interroger sur la signification de cette action, son oeil derrière la caméra marquant une étape cruciale de la conquête du dehors. Puisque le droit de regarder, tout comme le droit de parler, écrire et circuler librement, signifie à la fois liberté et transgression, — Djebar écrit: Qu'est-ce que le regard de l’Autre dans une culture où l’oeil a d’abord été des siècles durant mis sous surveillance? Un oeil unique existait, celui du maître du sérail qui interdisait tout représentation visuelle et qui invoquait le tabou religieux pour conforter ce pouvoir. Alors, le regard de l’autre, à moins d’être celui d’un voyeur (regard d’effraction ou d’agressivité), ne saisit de la femme qu’un mirage enveloppé de poésie.

Pourtant, elle reconnaît aussi que la femme algérienne, soumise au regard du maître, a connu deux types de contrôle, l’un provenant de son statut de femme dans la sociéte patriarcale musulmane, l’autre de son Statut d’indigène dans un pays colonial. A partir de la conquête de l’Algérie en 1830, tous les Algériens seront mis sous le contrôle de l’administration française; hommes, femmes et enfants subiront le regard dominateur du colonisateur. Rajoutons qu’en conquérant les terres d'Afrique, le colonisateur s’approprie l’image de l’autochtone, et la manipule selon les besoins et les desseins de l’aventure coloniale. A partir des années 1880, le photographe proposera à l’Européen les premières cartes postales de l’Algérie. L'image de la femme arabe voilée (représentation exotique) ou presque nue (représentation érotique) circulera en Europe et dans les colonies. Djebar voit dans ces cartes, portant au verso des salutations banales, le “regard-prétexte d’un absent pour des absents: l’être regardé est nié plus que jamais dans son identité profonde comme si * Assia Djebar: “Un regard de femme.” Courrier de l'Unesco, no. 910, octobre 1989, p.35.

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sa différence devenait objet de mode, de folklore, un décor vide.” Ainsi, elle réagit contre deux formes d’oppression, l’une provenant de la société musulmane contrôlant le regard de la femme, et l’autre

de l’empire colonial dont le regard de l’autochtone nie son identité individuelle. Pour la cinéaste algérienne, alors, la problématique du regard de l’Autre se situe à deux niveaux: l’une, ancrée dans le présent, traite des rapports entre l’homme et la femme musulmans: l’autre, se référant aux rapports d’hier entre colonisé et colonisateur. Dès le début de La Nouba... Djebar met en relief le thème du regard et le rattache à la parole. Le film s’ouvre sur la jeune femme Lila, présentée dos au spectateur, le visage contre le mur, la tête cachée par une chevelure sombre. Soudain sa voix éclate, fâchée, et elle crie: “Je parle, je parle, je parle.” Après un moment de silence, elle rajoute: “Je ne veux pas que l’on me voie.” Et, s’adressant à un homme dans la chambre, elle insiste, “Je ne veux pas que tu me voies.” Ainsi, Lila entre en scène proclamant à la fois son désir de communiquer avec autrui et son refus d’être regardée, ni par l’homme, ni par la caméra, celle-ci, prenant en gros plan la tête tournée vers le mur, filme

sa révolte.

1e)

Pourtant, Ali, le mari de Lila, ne sait comment interpréter n1 son refus d’être regardée n1 son désir de parler. Il ne comprend pas qu’elle désire qu’on l’écoute, qu’elle cherche à s’imposer en tant

qu’individu d’abord, et que le refus — “Je ne veux pas que tu me voies” — traduit son rejet du regard dominateur. Au regard de l’homme, qu’il soit amoureux, érotique, jaloux, ou tout simplement curieux, la femme oppose son propre désir de participer à la vie, en regardant le monde en face et en prenant la parole pour s’exprimer et

communiquer. Djebar écrit à propos de cette scène: J’aboutis à cette évidence, ou à cette interrogation: que le cinéma fait par les femmes — autant cette fois du tiers monde que du “vieux monde” — procède d’abord d’un désir de parole. Comme si “tourner” au cinéma représente, pour les femmes, une mobilité de la voix et du corps, du corps non regardé, donc insoumis, retrouvant autonomie et innocence.!°

? ibid., p.36. Pour une étude de la carte postale avec reproductions de plusieurs cartes, voir Malek Alloula: Le harem colonial. (Paris: Garance, 1981).

1 Assia Djebar: “Un regard de femme,” op.cit., p.37.

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La deuxième scène mettant en relief le thème du regard lié à la parole se passe durant la nuit dans la chambre du couple. Ali, le mari immobilisé dans un fauteuil roulant, regarde par la porte ouverte, sa femme dormant dans le lit conjugal. Endormie, elle ne peut refuser le regard dont elle n’en est même pas consciente. Bien que le regard de l’homme traduise son désir pour la femme, lui, paralysé à la suite de son accident, est incapable de se lever, franchir le seuil de la chambre et s’approcher du lit. La caméra suit l’homme qui retombe sur la chaise et lui prend la place en tournant lentement autour du lit. Entourée d’un décor tout blanc (murs, couvertures, peaux de mouton) et engloutie dans son grand lit, Lila semble à première vue, heureuse, prête à vouloir se réveiller et accueillir son mari. Sous les couvertures blanches, la tête couverte d’un foulard rouge de paysanne, elle offre à l’oeil de la caméra un visage serein. Pourtant, des cauchemars perturbent son sommeil, lui rappellant les atrocités de la guerre; elle lutte dans son sommeil contre ses rêves troublants mais

ne se réveille pas. Dans cette scène, Djebar se sert des archives de la guerre d’Algérie, des documentaires de massacres filmés en noir en blanc, pour perturber l’univers tranquille de la dormeuse. Au blocage de la première scène, le refus de l’une et le silence de l’autre, s’ajoutent l’impuissance de l’un et l’angoisse de l’autre, ce qui rend impossible tout sentiment d’affection. Le couple ne peut partager le lit conjugal: lui, impuissant, elle, bloquée dans un passé douloureux dont elle n’arrive pas à se débarrasser. Femme seule bien que mariée, Lila ressent la solitude qui pèse sur les protagonistes de deux romans précédants de Djebar, Lila, dans Les Enfants du nouveau monde et Nfissa, dans Les Alouettes naïves." Ayant quitté la famille traditionnelle dans l’esprit de construire un couple moderne, les trois femmes découvrent que le trajet vers ce couple mène à l’impasse. Pourtant, à l’échec du couple, Djebar propose un dialogue entre femmes. Fuyant la maison, un espace clos d’étouffement et de souffrance, ainsi qu’un mari renfermé dans son silence, elle va vers les paysannes. Ainsi, la caméra passe de l’intérieur, de l’univers féminin "' Les Enfants du nouveau monde. (Paris: Julliard, 1962). Les Alouettes naives. (Paris: Julliard, 1967).

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fermé sur lui-même, au dehors. Cherchant à renouer avec les femmes

de son passé, Lila les retrouve travaillant dans les champs. Dans cet univers rude et pauvre où parmi les ronces et broussailles, des enfants jouent pieds nus, Lila trouve l’amitié. Dès la première tentative de communication avec les femmes rurales — premiers regards menant aux premières paroles — un échange s’effectue. Lorsque Lila prend l'initiative et leur parle, les femmes entrent en dialogue, renseignant la femme de la ville sur leur vie quotidienne en Algérie rurale, et sur leur passé, la vie au maquis pendant la guerre de libération. Pénétrant dans l’arrière pays d’Algérie afin de rétablir ses liens avec les paysannes du Chenoua, Lila entreprend un voyage initiatique qui s’effectue dans le temps et l’espace. L'oeil de la caméra la suit dans sa redécouverte du monde rural de son passé. Juxtaposant l’image de Lila derrière le volant de sa voiture à celle d’une paysanne balançant une charge de fagots sur la tête, la caméra accentue l'écart

entre deux mondes féminins qui se côtoient. Mais, si l’image de la femme ramenant du feu au foyer semble séparer Lila des paysannes, le dialogue les rapproche. En écoutant attentivement les femmes du

Chenoua, Lila découvre un autre monde ou la “femme-autre” n’est autre que sa soeur de combat, celle qui partage sa souffrance. Les discussions portant sur la guerre aident Lila à se guérir des traumatismes de guerre, et les femmes à valoriser leur contribution à la guerre d'indépendance. Poursuivant les traces de son frère, disparu dans le maquis, Lila, elle-même emprisonnée, découvre que chaque femme du Chenoua a son histoire personnelle de perte, de traumatisme, de familles dispersées et de personnes disparues. Ainsi, sa quête personnelle du frère la mène à la découverte de la sororité. Il est clair que l’optimisme du cinéma de Djebar se situe dans le dialogue des femmes. Dans l’échange de paroles encourageant le regard de la femme sur l’univers qui l’entoure, la citadine “moderne” et la paysanne “traditionnelle” s’accordent l’une et l’autre le droit à la subjectivité. La cinéaste explique: Dans le cas de la femme arabe la prise de la parole individuelle, celle où l’on dit “je” pour son propre compte, est une chose nouvelle. Et tout dialogue qui débouche sur la recherche de l’identité, est fertile. Les dialogues entre mère et fille, entre soeur et soeur, entre femmes de générations différentes sont des

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dialogues d’avenir. Le but des femmes qui créent quelque chose est de donner aux autres l’envie de dire ‘je.’’”

Afin de transmettre ce que les femmes rurales ont vraiment vécu, Djebar s’écarte de la fiction pour passer au documentaire. Elle introduit dans le film des conversations enregistrées avec six anciennes maquisardes, toutes du Chenoua, qui ont accepté de lui raconter leurs expériences de guerre. Se souvenant de leurs années de lutte au maquis: Zohra Sahraoui, Aicha Medeljar, Fatma Serhane, Kheira Amrane, Fatma Oudai, Khedija Lekhal, sont des femmes dont les

exploits héroiques sont connus du public algérien grace a la caméra de Djebar. Dans les parties documentaires, le personnage fictif Joue le rôle de Djebar. Lila intervient pour encourager ces femmes à parler, pour “écouter leur mémoire,” et ne sert que de courroie de transmission pour les six femmes. Djebar a choisi des passages caractérisés par leur ton de sincérité plutôt que par l’importance de ce qui était racontée.” Malgré leur souffrance, les femmes s’expriment sur un ton simple et direct, presque sans émotion. Ainsi, la bande sonore enregistre une voix qui dit: “Je portais soixante kilos sur moi pour les partisans,” et une autre se rappelle: “Je ne voulais pas dire que nous avons passé la nuit dehors. Ils rient, ceux a qui rien n’arrive.” Sûrement, les épisodes les plus difficiles à raconter concernent la mort du combattant ou combattante. Une voix de femme explique que le corps de Zoulikha, torturée par l’Armée française, était enterrée dans les montagnes, et une autre raconte comment elle a passé toute une nuit dans un arbre après la mort de son frère, disparu dans un oued. Ces témoignages sont accompagnés d’images inspirées du vécu, dont la reconstitution de la scène de la jeune fille retrouvant son frère. Pourtant, quand les faits historiques remontent au passé lointain, à l’insurrection de 1871 menée par Sidi Malek Sahraoui El Berkani, l'ancêtre de la cinéaste, les visions deviennent à la fois plus subjectives et poétiques. Lorsque l’héroïne se souvient de sa grand-mère racontant aux enfants l’épisode de l’insurrection, Djebar choisit de ne

pas restituer l’événement historique mais de faire intervenir une ? Fanon, op.cit., p.4. Delmas, op.cit., p.8.

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image intime et personnelle, celle d’une vingtaine de vieilles entourées d’enfants. Dans ce cas précis, le souvenir d’enfance prend le pas sur le fait historique. Notons aussi que quand Djebar revient à l’écriture, après plus de dix ans, elle reprend le témoignage. Dans le roman, L’amour, la fantasia, les chapitres “Voix” et “Voix de femmes” reproduisent les té-

moignages des combattantes, ceux-ci sur le même ton sec et dépouillé du film. Se servant également de témoignages historiques dans son étude détaillée sur la participation des femmes à la guerre de libération, l’historienne Djamila Amrane-Minne confirme le même ton simple, sec, dépouillé chez les anciennes maquisards.* Djebar et Amrane-Minne sont toutes les deux frappées par la sincérité de l’interviewée; elle parle spontanément et en toute simplicité de sa vie

de combattante en s’écartant de tout discours officiel et valorisation personnelle, en mêlant des souvenirs de certains moments historiques exceptionnels au récit du quotidien. Toutes deux historiennes de formation, Amrane-Minne et Djebar révèlent la sincérité de ces femmes, dont beaucoup sont analphabètes, en opposition au style masculin. Selon elles, l’homme a tendance à construire un “discours épique” et parler peu du quotidien. La première intention de Djebar en se tournant vers le cinéma était de faire un documentaire sur les femmes de sa région natale. Pourtant, en décidant d’introduire la quête spirituelle d’une femme de retour sur les lieux de son enfance, elle a choisi d’y intégrer un élément -de fiction. Ainsi, l’évolution psychologique de Lila, personnage fictif, et la prise de parole des femmes du Mont Chenoua vont de pair. Tout d’abord, Djebar, dans le but d’authenticité, a passé deux mois avec les femmes rurales dans les villages où elle allait situer le film, avant d’entamer le tournage. Ensuite, elle a monté les premières images du film à partir de la base sonore des conversations enregistrées sur place. Dans la construction de son premier film, le son a précédé l’image."

14 Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne: Femmes au combat, op.cit., p.278. 'S Fanon, op.cit., p.3. '© Voir ibid. et Delmas, op.cit., p.7.

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Signalons aussi que lorsque Djebar intervient dans ce monde rural, encourageant les femmes a parler de leur vie, elle le fait avec beaucoup de discretion. Respectant |’interdit au niveau du regard, et refusant toute transgression dans ce domaine, elle veut découvrir ce monde sans rien déranger. Si elle filmait des adolescentes et jeunes femmes sans l’accord du père ou du mari, elle provoquerait de graves problèmes familiaux dans ce milieu musulman traditionnel. Djebar décide, donc, de sacrifier certaines images. Pendant le tournage, Pesthétique a dû céder à la morale; elle n’a jamais pu filmer “l’inconnue de la ferme,” la belle “Madone” représentant toutes les femmes “que les machines ne cerneront pas.” ; Réfléchissant sur la problématique de l’interdit, Djebar considère qu’il est plus important de faire parler des femmes que de les prendre en image. A son avis, la libération de la parole précède celle du regard. Pour protéger les femmes du “regard volé” de la caméra, elle décide de filmer dehors et de montrer la femme circulant dans l’espace libre. Donc, toutes les scènes d’intérieur sont des séquences de fiction. Pourtant, la caméra n’hésite pas à signaler l’interdit en posant son regard sur des silhouettes de jeunes femmes cachées derrière une porte ainsi que sur des maisons dont les fenêtres restent fermées. Pour mieux élucider la position de Djebar vis-à-vis de l’interdit, je propose d’ouvrir une parenthèse sur un texte clé de la cinéaste à ce sujet. Revenant à l’écriture après le tournage du film, elle publie Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (1980)* avec une postface intitulée “Regard interdit, son coupé” qui rattache les six nouvelles du recueil au tableau orientaliste célèbre de Delacroix, inspiré par son séjour en Algérie en 1832. Evoquant l’espace fermé féminin du sérail, “Femmes d’ Alger dans leur appartement” représente un intérieur mauresque et quatre femmes orientales: l’une à demi allongée sur un coussin, deux autres assises devant un narguilé, la quatrième debout: une servante noire vue de dos. Le geste de celle-ci, la main soulevant

" Assia Djebar: Vaste est la prison. p.223. '’ Assia Djebar: Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement. (Paris: Des Femmes, 1980).

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un rideau sombre et lourd, permet au peintre et ensuite au public européen le “regard volé” sur cet intérieur luxueux et étouffant.'° Lorsque Djebar réfléchit sur le portrait des odalisques de Delacroix plus de cent trente ans plus tard, elle écrit: Prisonnières résignées d’un lieu clos qui s’éclaire d’une sorte de lumière de rêve venue de nulle part — lumière de serre ou d’aquarium -— le génie de Delacroix les rend à la fois présentes et lointaines, énigmatiques au plus haut point.”

Djebar reconnaît le génie de Delacroix qui, en reproduisant l’intérieur riche et sombre des femmes cloîtrées, a su saisir le regard triste et rêveur des odalisques, mais elle explique la visite du peintre en termes de transgression. Dans son analyse du tableau, elle met en relief le rapport entre le témoin et son sujet: lui, peintre célèbre de aventure coloniale; elles, victimes d’une domination patriarcale précédant la conquête de l’Algérie. Selon Djebar, l’importance du tableau provient, d’une part, de la transgression du regard de |’Autre, le “regard interdit” de Delacroix, et d’autre part, de la conversation inaudible des femmes, “le son coupé.” En accordant autant d’importance au silence que Delacroix attribue à l’enfermement, Djebar réinterprète la scène du sérail de son point de vue féministe. Elle s’approprie la tâche de réinstaurer le son coupé, c’est-à-dire, de donner voix au silence dont Delacroix ne comprenait ni le poids ni la portée. Révélant le lien étroit entre la venue à la parole et le droit au regard, “Regard interdit, son coupé” représente une étape importante _ dans la quête personnelle de Djebar et explique sa décision de devenir cinéaste. Ses réflexions sur le tableau de Delacroix l’encouragent à retrouver les murmures de la langue maternelle, sa méditation sur le regard de l’Autre lui rappelle la nécessité de s’opposer au regard dominateur. Ainsi, son oeil féminin derrière la caméra marque une libération collective aussi bien que personnelle, enregistrant et diffu1? Bien que Djebar n’accorde qu’un rôle accessoire à la servante, Nicole Aas-Rouxparis y voit le signe d’une première confrontation avec la tradition. Voir, “L’esthétique d’une mémoire dans Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement d’Assia Djebar: reconstitution et traduction,” Revue Francophone 8:2, pp.5-17.

0 Assia Djebar: Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement. (Paris: Editions des Femmes, 1982), p.170.

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sant la parole de la femme algérienne et transformant le regard de l’Autre en regard de la femme sur les êtres, objets et paysages qui l’entourent. En tant qu’oeuvre à la fois documentaire et fiction, La Nouba..., pose une question pertinente: Comment faire revivre en “image-son” une histoire individuelle et collective de la femme algérienne? Deux scènes de fiction qui se déroulent vers la fin du film sont très impor-

tantes à cet égard. La première, un plan de nuit, présente Lila participant avec les femmes rurales à une veillée de danses traditionnelles dans une cave. Entrant dans la danse, Lila, qui finit par allumer un cierge qu’elle place à côté de ceux déposés dans la cave par d’autres femmes, confirme son appartenance au groupe. Si, par le fait de participer à la fête, Lila renoue avec les rites anciens de la tribu, le lieu où se déroule la cérémonie est aussi significatif, la cave, sombre, humide et mystérieuse, ramène Lila symboliquement à la matrice,

c’est-a dire, aux origines tribales et au matriarcat. Dans ses films et dans ses textes, Djebar insiste toujours sur la nécessité de renouer avec le langage ancien de la tribu. Rattachée au passé ancestral, cette scène témoigne encore une fois de la sororité retrouvée à travers le son: la parole, la musique et la danse. La seconde scène, un plan de jour, dépeint Lila, vêtue d’un burnous blanc, allongée dans une barque de pêcheurs partant sur la mer. Prenant le large sous un beau ciel bleu, le bateau traverse un paysage méditerranéen de rochers blanchis par le soleil et lavés par la mer. Laissant derrière elle les deux univers clos, la maison du couple et le monde rural du Mont Chenoua, Lila se sépare du passé personnel et collectif pour aller vers l’avenir. Voyageant seule, elle va vers un nouvel espace libre et prometteur. Ainsi, puisant dans le passé et faisant travailler la mémoire, le film débouche sur un avenir où l’espace clos s’ouvre. La bande-sonore et l’image soulignent l’optimisme de La Nouba qui conclut sur un chant d’espoir ramenant à la dédicace en tête du film, au courage de Zoulikha, l’héroïne des femmes du Chenoua: Mon chant parle toujours de liberté

(...)

Zoulikha vivante s’assoit parmi les monts

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Elle bondit comme les chevaux et les coursiers Zoulikha, tout ce qui était difficile Tout ce qui était difficile pour toi sera facile Le pays de la séparation, derriére toi tu le laisseras Nous vivrons un réve d’aisance et de bien-étre Nous régnerons librement, dans une joie merveilleuse!

Lorsqu’elle entreprend son deuxiéme projet de film, La Zerda ou les chants de l'oubli (1982), Djebar se met de nouveau à l’écoute du “murmure de l’Algérie profonde” et continue à enregistrer les chants des femmes. Abandonnant la fiction pour le documentaire, elle situe la mémoire collective de la femme algérienne dans le contexte de l’expérience coloniale. Cette fois-ci, la cinéaste travaille sur des images maghrébines prises par le colonisateur pendant trente ans de l’époque coloniale, de 1912-1942, en les accompagnant des chants de femmes algériennes. Filmé en noir et blanc, La Zerda présente une série d’images inédites triées des chutes de films. Dépouillant des archives cinématographiques coloniales, elle a pu sauver des images oubliées destinées à la destruction et les recontextualiser pour le public algérien. 4 Djebar rajoute son propre commentaire aux chants de femmes pour souligner les méfaits de la mission civilisatrice: l’humiliation d’un peuple vaincu, l’effacement de la culture et de la civilisation maghrébine. Sans introduire des scènes de violence, (comme celles parsemées dans La Nouba...,) le documentaire témoigne d’une violence plus subtile mais également pernicieuse, celle faite à l’identité d’un peuple. Ayant subi cette violence , la narratrice dit au colonisateur: “Tu nous as coupé la parole” et à son peuple: “leur regard nous défigure.” Djebar constate que l’oeil de la caméra tenue par l’Européen a souvent tendance à ne voir que la masse anonyme. Lorsqu’un visage algérien apparaît sur l’écran, il s’agit plus souvent d’un paysan, ouvrier, ou soldat, c’est-à-dire, d’un homme participant à cette aventure coloniale dont il ne tirait aucun bénéfice. Ainsi, la cinéaste rappelle encore une fois que le colonisateur, en conquérant les terres, s’approprie l’image de l’autochtone et la manipule selon les besoins et les desseins de l’aventure coloniale.

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Il aurait été impossible pour Djebar de construire un documentaire sur la femme algériénne à partir des chutes de films car le projet du photographe colonial était d’archiver tous les défilés, galas et fêtes coloniaux de l’époque, auxquels l’administrateur français présidait, la femme autochtone n’y participant presque jamais. Ainsi, les quelques images de femmes apparaissant dans ces “chutes” portent un cachet folklorique: des danseuses aux fêtes traditionnelles et des jeunes filles

assises devant leur métier à tisser. Retraçant une période de trente ans, le montage de Djebar révèle que la caméra coloniale témoigne d’une transformation économique et sociologique progressive liée aux déplacements importants de la population. Pendant cette période, le colonisé fait-l’expérience de l'immigration, le paysan quitte son village pour la grande ville et le jeune maghrébin cherche du travail en France. Ainsi, en décortiquant ces documents que le colonisateur avait monté pour le public français en métropole et dans les colonies afin de promouvoir la mission civilisatrice, Djebar découvre en images l’histoire de la dépossession de son pays. Elle dira: “Dans la ruche habitent les mouches, ils ont chassé toutes les abeilles.” Composée de “chutes” de l’époque coloniale, accompagnées d’une bande-sonore de chants des femmes algériennes, La Zerda est, à Pinstar de La Nouba..., une méditation sur l’histoire, liant l’image à

la mémoire. Au cours du tournage de ces deux films, Djebar apprenait que le regard sur le dehors est en même temps un retour à la mémoire, et que tout déplacement vers le dehors nécessite un regard critique sur le passé. Lorsque Djebar entreprend sa quête historique à travers la mémoire des femmes, elle fait revenir le son et l’image du passé pour mieux comprendre le présent et aller vers l’avenir. En conclusion, le cinéma de Djebar, prenant comme point de départ le refus du regard de l’Autre, cherche à remplacer le regard de désir et de domination par un regard de tendresse et de respect. Et, dans le but de donner à la femme muette et regardée le droit à la parole et au regard, la cinéaste algérienne souhaite lui confier sa caméra. Elle écrit: Cette image — réalité de mon enfance, de celle de ma mère et de mes tantes,

de mes cousines parfois du même âge que moi, ce scandale qu’enfa nt j'ai vécu norme —, voici qu’elle surgit au départ de cette quête, silhouet te unique

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de femme, rassemblant dans les pans de son linge-linceul les quelque cinq cents millions de ségréguées du monde islamique, c’est elle soudain qui regarde, mais derrière la caméra, elle qui, par un trou libre dans une face masquée, dévore le monde?

A l’époque du tournage de ces premiers films, de 1976 a 1982, Djebar exprimait sa confiance en l’avenir de son pays en termes d’une nouvelle parole et d’un nouveau regard, les deux nés du dialogue entre femmes dynamiques et courageuses. Malheureusement, les Algériennes cherchant à regarder le monde en face se trouvent menacées aujourd’hui par certains de leurs frères, pères, maris. Les 1islamistes passés à la lutte armée prennent pour cible toute femme luttant pour une Algérie démocratique. Mais, trop longtemps victime d’oppression patriarcale et coloniale, la femme algérienne se libère; elle refuse de reculer malgré les menaces de violence. Assia Djebar, à travers ses films et ses livres, représente une voix de résistance, revendiquant avec ses soeurs le droit de parler, regarder, circuler, et penser dans une Algérie plurielle où chaque individu a le droit de cité dans un espace ouvert et libre.

2 Vaste est la prison, op.cit., p.174.

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MADELEINE

BORGOMANO

Visages de Femmes: Finzan et Les Soleils des Indépendances Les films africains sont assez rarement des adaptations de romans. Sarraounia, du mauritanien Med Hondo, (1987), basé sur le roman homonyme du nigérien Abdoulaye Mamani (1980), les films de Sembéne Ousmane, par exemple La noire de... (1966), Le Mandat

(1968), Taaw (1971) Xala (1974), tirés de ses propres romans,' ou encore Hyénes (1990) de Djibril Diop-Mambéty, (adaptation d’un pièce de Friedrich Dürrenmatt La visite de la vieille dame), restent des exceptions. | Mais, très souvent, tout se passe comme

si romans

et cinéma se

cantonnaient dans deux domaines très distincts. Le roman reste le plus souvent encore réservé, en Afrique même, au petit nombre de lecteurs effectifs,’ alors que le cinéma est susceptible d’atteindre un public beaucoup plus large et de servir, en somme, de substitut moderne à la littérature orale. Sembène Ousmane déclare, dans un entretien à Londres: La littérature s'adresse à une minorité. Tandis que [...] la plupart des Africains, une majorité dans les villes, vont au cinéma, même nos bonnes ména-

gères.

Mais il est vrai qu’il ajoute:

1 Ousmane Sembène: “La noire de...” Voltaiques. (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1962); Le Mandat. (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1966), Xala. (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1973); “Taaw” Niiwam. (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1987). 2 Même si l’alphabétisation gagne sans cesse du terrain dans les pays africains (de façon très inégale), la lecture reste une activité très minoritaire, pour des raisons multiples et complexes: culturelles, bien sûr, (persistance d’une tradition orale, et préférence pour la télévision), non-valorisation de la lecture (activité individuelle qui isole), mais aussi, économiques: rareté et pauvreté des bibliothèques et des librairies, cherté des livres etc. With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, At-

lanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

112

MADELEINE BORGOMANO Nous consommons, je prends le Sénégal comme exemple, mille films par an de l'extérieur. Sur les mille films par an, vous avez peut-être deux ou trois films africains. *

Pourtant, il arrive-que des cinéastes, sans adapter véritablement un roman, et tout en construisant un film original, s’inspirent de personnages et de scènes littéraires, de façon assez souple. Ce qui nous offre une intéressante occasion de confrontation entre roman et film. Ainsi, Finzan, de Cheikh Oumar Sissoko, film malien de 1990, met en scène un personnage de femme révoltée — ou plutôt résistante — Nanyuma. Le personnage de Nanyuma peut être inscrit dans une

tradition littéraire ancienne. Manthia Diawara lui trouve un modèle épique, en Sogolon, femme-buffle imprenable, qui devient la mère de Soundiata, et un modèle romanesque, Kani, qui, dans Sous l'orage de Seydou Badian,‘ refuse jusqu’au bout le mari imposé par son père. Mais ces parentés restent très limitées. Je m’intéresserai donc surtout à une autre filiation, celle qui relie l’héroïne de Finzan et Salimata, femme de Fama dans Les Soleils des

Indépendances, d’Ahmadou Kourouma.‘ Apparaît là une véritable intertextualité. La parenté entre le film de Sissoko et le roman de Kourouma ne se limite pas à une ressemblance entre les personnages

féminins, elle affecte la structure des deux oeuvres et éclaire les fonctions relatives du roman et du film en Afrique. Le personnage attachant de Salimata occupe une place importante dans le roman de Kourouma: deux chapitres de la première partie lui

sont entièrement consacrés, qui pourraient s’intituler “une Journée

dans la vie de Salimata.” Elle est l’objet unique de ces chapitres, qui

suivent, au premier niveau, le déroulement de sa longue et active journée de travail, rythmée par les traversées de la lagune. Mais, sur-

* Protée noir, Essais sur la littérature francophone de l'Afrique noire et des Antilles, ed. L'Harmattan. S’il est donc bien vrai que le cinéma touche un public plus large (voir le succès croissant du FESPACO, à Bamako, Burkina Faso) et semble susceptible de mieux correspondre aux goûts de ce public, les problèmes de distribution sont considérables et aboutissent au résultat paradoxal que les films africains passent très peu, ou pas du tout, en Afrique. * Manthia Diawara: African Cinema: Politics and Culture. (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), p.145.

* Seydou Badian: Sous l'orage. (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1957, rééd. 1973). ° Ahmadou Kourouma: Les Soleils des Indépendances. (Paris: Seuil, 1970).

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tout, elle en est véritablement le sujet, puisque le récit, systématiquement en focalisation interne, met vraiment le lecteur a la place de Salimata en lui faisant partager ses pensées, ses sensations, ses réves et ses souvenirs. Ce procédé de focalisation interne permet aussi au romancier de légitimer le récit, au deuxième niveau narratif, de la vie entière de Salimata. Les rêves de Salimata lui font revivre ses traumatismes essentiels: l’excision, ressentie comme un cauchemar en noir et rouge, le viol

“dans sa plaie d’excisée” (p.38) par le féticheur Tiécoura, “un bipède effrayant, répugnant et sauvage,” le mariage effroyable avec Baffi, le hernieux, et le remariage forcé avec son beau-frère Tiémoko. Salimata devient alors la victime, mais la victime résistante, d’un fou violent “brandissant à toute occasion le couteau et le fusil” (p.42). Le bercement du bateau, le chant du batelier et l’effet assoupissant du soleil sur l’eau de la lagune la ramènent à des temps toujours difficiles, mais plus heureux: sa fuite éperdue à travers la nuit et les dangers de la brousse vers son bel amoureux, ce Fama “déclencheur du désir de le toucher, de le frôler, de l’avaler” (p.48).

Après ces deux chapitres, il est vrai, Salimata passe au second plan, sans jamais pourtant disparaître du roman de Kourouma. Mais sa place devient secondaire et indirecte. Elle n’est plus présentée qu’à travers la médiation des pensées de Fama et du récit de Bakary. La fin du roman lui redonne, en son absence, une place essentielle. Fama devient héroïque en renonçant à Salimata par humilité (il re-

connaît sa propre stérilité) et par amour: “Elle méritait quelques jours de bonheur. Salimata, sois heureuse sans repentir.” (p.192) Fama se définit lui-même, dans son ultime proclamation, comme “le mari de Salimata” (p.199). Mais il est vrai que Salimata, absente de cette scène, ignore tout de cette reconnaissance tardive qui reste un point de vue unilatéral de Fama. Dans la première partie du roman, la place de Salimata est exactement égale à celle de Fama: deux chapitres pour chacun. De plus, la construction du récit, analogue pour les deux personnages, accentue

le parallélisme. Un premier plan s’attache au présent et au quotidien, opposant l’emploi du temps paresseux du prince parasite à l’activité productrice de sa femme. Sur ce fond se détachent les analepses, ra-

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contant les luttes passées, celles de Fama, mélées au combat collectif

pour “les Indépendances” (avant qu’elles ne deviennent “batardises"), et celle de Salimata pour sa propre libération. Ces parallélismes narratifs peuvent étre-interprétés comme une figure suggérant une équivalence implicite entre la lutte collective pour les indépendances et la lutte individuelle d’une femme pour sa propre libération. Les conclusions qu’appelle cette équivalence ne sont pas déclarées directement. Mais l’identification provisoire avec le personnage de Salimata, et, par suite, la sympathie pour elle qu’impose au lecteur sa place narrative, intensifient ces conclusions. Les traditions aveugles, qui oppriment les femmes, et les hommes qui ont intérêt à les maintenir, sont présentés comme aussi iniques et intolérables que les exactions de la colonisation et les “bdtardises” des régimes d’après les Indépendances. Et la révolte des femmes se trouve ainsi légitimée. Cependant cette équivalence et cette légitimation restent très peu apparentes. La lutte de Salimata est ancienne. Elle a été très courageuse, mais elle est restée solitaire et individuelle. Salimata résiste et agit par instinct de conservation. Elle ne formule aucune revendication générale, ne manifeste aucune révolte contre la tradition ellemême.

En s’inspirant de femmes comme Salimata, mais presque trente ans après, Cheikh Oumar Sissoko, dans son film Finzan, prend, lui, une position beaucoup plus explicite. Le film se déclare en faveur de l'émancipation féminine dès ses premières images. Le premier plan qui, en se répétant plusieurs fois dans le film, révélera sa dimension métaphorique, montre deux chèvres, attachées serré, qui tournent en

rond autour d’un arbre. Immédiatement après, donc en relation signifiante probable avec cette image, apparaît sur l’écran un texte écrit en français. C’est une déclaration de la décennie pour la femme des Nations Unies, publiée à Copenhague en 1980 et dénonçant “la double oppression dont sont victimes les femmes”: Alors qu’elles représentent 50% de la population mondiale et totalisent envi-

ron les 2/3 des heures de travail effectuées dans le monde, les femmes

reçoivent à peine 1/10éme du revenu mondial et possèdent moins de 1/10ème de la propriété mondiale.

Certes, la présence de ce texte a quelque chose d’ambigu: il est écrit (et non dit) — et écrit en français — alors que le film, sous-titré en

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frangais, est parlé en bambara. Cette option du parler bambara est difficile à interpréter. Incontestablement, le grand public est francophone, et lettré. L’usage de la langue bambara correspondrait, peutêtre, à une volonté d’authenticité, à moins qu’elle n’indique une orientation vers un public spécifique, mais largement ouvert aux illettrés ou aux mal-lisants. Ceux-ci, évidemment, ne peuvent prendre connaissance de la déclaration liminaire, qui, à la différence de l’image des chèvres entravées, ne se répète jamais dans le film: ainsi,

la prise de position affirmée, du moins sous sa forme déclarative, risque-t-elle de leur échapper. Cependant, divers personnages, et particulièrement Nanyuma, prononceront plusieurs fois, au cours du film, des déclarations moins générales et plus concrètes, mais équivalentes. Ainsi pourra se résoudre en partie la question inévitable du double public visé par le film. Finzan est fortement construit en séquences librement alternées qui mettent en relation plusieurs histoires, toutes situées dans le même village bambara. L’histoire de Nanyuma est celle du mariage imposé à une jeune veuve et de sa rébellion, qui n’est victorieuse qu’au dénouement, après une longue lutte désespérée. Elle alterne avec l’histoire collective du village bambara: un jeune et prétentieux “commandant” débarqué de la ville veut contraindre les paysans à livrer, malgré la sécheresse qui affame la région, le nombre imposé de sacs de millet au prix dérisoire fixé par les autorités. À ces deux histoires entremêlées, s’ajoute l’histoire de Fili, jeune citadine que les femmes du village excisent de force. La construction alternée rappelle celle de la première partie du roman de Kourouma. Mais elle persiste tout au long du film, ce qui la rend beaucoup plus lisible et lui donne une autre ampleur. En même temps, elle est inversée: c’est la révolte féminine qui est mise au premier plan, la lutte des villageois ligués contre l’autorité oppressive reste au second plan, comme une métaphore. Alternance et parallélismes font aussi éclater des contradictions surprenantes. Le soulèvement du village est un acte de non-violence, extrêmement efficace et impressionnant de ce fait: les luttes politiques changeraient-elles de nature et de moyens? Mais s’ils ont compris la force de cette action non-violente contre le “commandant,” les

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villageois, par contre, utilisent contre des femmes désarmées la plus grande violence, et imposent à ces femmes, en retour, la violence comme légitime défense. Ainsi, la sagesse acquise dans le domaine public n’atteint pas le domaine privé des rapports entre les sexes, au contraire. L’histoire principale est celle de Nanyuma, mariée très jeune à un vieil homme, dont elle est la troisième épouse. Le début du film évoque l’agonie du vieux mari. Nanyuma reste muette, et calmement active, même si la première femme, dans sa sagesse, entend bien qu’elle parle “à l’intérieur d’elle-même.” Devenue veuve, Nanyuma ne verse pas une larme et répond brutalement à sa mère, quand elle lui reproche cette absence de larmes, qu’elle vient de passer “huit années en enfer.” Mais le véritable enfer ne fait que commencer pour Nanyuma. Elle est revendiquée, selon la coutume, par son beau-frère Bala, déjà pourvu de deux épouses. Le chef de village accède à la demande de Bala, bien qu’il soit reconnu comme l’idiot du village. Il punit même de verges (la chicotte) l’autre prétendant de Nanyuma venu d’un village voisin. Le film s’inspire, pour le personnage de Bala, des rôles codés du théâtre populaire malien, le koteba. Bala est le bouffon. Ce rôle est d’ailleurs joué par un acteur du koteba, qui exagère comiquement le côté ridicule et excessif de Bala. Cette ridiculisation bouffonne du personnage tend, évidemment, à donner au film un aspect caricatural, un peu binaire et simpliste, même s’il s’enracine dans une tradition. Un effet semblable, mais dans le genre purement comique, est obtenu dans Bal Poussière (Henri Duparc, 1988), où le mari se trouve ridiculisé sous le nom de “Demi Dieu.” Nanyuma refuse catégoriquement Bala, mais elle est déclarée, par le chef du village, folle et d’ailleurs responsable de la folie amoureuse de son prétendant. Sa mère tente de la soutenir: le père la chasse. Nanyuma trouve alors asile dans un autre village, où elle se cache un moment. Mais le chef du village la renvoie chez elle. Elle s’enfuit en pleine nuit dans la brousse, affronte une lionne rugissante. Au terme de sa fuite, elle parvient chez son beau-frère à la ville. Mais les hommes de la ville ne sont pas meilleurs que ceux du village. Attachée par des cordes comme un animal (image de violence qui renvoie à

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l’image récurrente des deux chèvres) elle est ramenée au village et mariée de force, avec la complicité du commandant (là encore l’image de la contrainte est très insistante, de même que la connivence masculine: ennemis par ailleurs, les villageois et le “commandant” retrouvent leur solidarité pour forcer une femme). Fort de son droit de “mari,” Bala veut violer Nanyuma: elle le menace d’un couteau. Il s’arme d’un fusil. | Le jeune fils de Nanyuma, associé à d’autres gamins du village, prend sa défense. Est-ce le signe qu’il y a un espoir de changement avec les jeunes générations? Les enfants réitèrent une vieille ruse qui avait servi à la résistance contre le colonisateur et ils ont raison de Bala qui sombre dans le ridicule scatologique. (Apparaît indirectement le rapprochement entre lutte des femmes et lutte anticoloniale suggéré dans Les Soleils des Indépendances). Malgré tout, c’est seulement à la fin du film, grâce à l’interférence des trois histoires (celle de Nanyuma, celle de Fili et celle de la résistance passive des villageois ligués contre l’exploitation) et à la prise de conscience qu’elles provoquent chez certaines femmes du village, que Nanyuma peut finalement s’enfuir. Plusieurs épisodes de Finzan rappellent très nettement l’histoire de Salimata, dont ils sont un écho: l’épisode de la fuite dans la nuit, à

travers la brousse, l’épisode de la tentative de viol de Nanyuma par Bala armé d’un fusil et enfin l’épisode de l’excision. Dans le film de Sissoko, les aventures du personnage féminin se trouvent redistribuées entre deux femmes: Nanyuma, personnage principal, et Fili, jeune bambara élevée en ville et renvoyée au village, qui est victime de l’excision. Le film, tout en se référant discrètement, mais par de multiples ressemblances, au roman de Kourouma, opère sur lui des transformations signifiantes.

Les scènes, bien que remémorées par Salimata, apparaissaient, dans le récit de Kourouma, selon leur ordre chronologique normal dans le déroulement de la vie d’une femme africaine: d’abord

lPexcision, entrée dans la vie de femme, suivie du viol par le féticheur, (cet épisode restant une anomalie). Ensuite le premier mariage raté, le veuvage, le second mariage imposé et tout aussi raté avec le beau-frère fou, enfin la fuite. Le film de Sissoko retire les scènes

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violentes de leur éloignement dans le passé: par la force de l’image, il les rend même singulièrement présentes. En redistribuant les rôles entre deux femmes distinctes, le cinéaste change aussi l’ordre des événements, ce qui produit un effet signifiant. L’excision, qui ne concerne pas directement l’héroïne principale, est rejetée à la fin du film. Elle passe ainsi du statut de premier traumatisme à celui de dernier outrage et apparaît comme le point culminant de la violence anti-féminine et le dénouement sanglant d’une crise. L'ordre adopté par le film est inverse de celui du roman: le veuvage vient en premier, suivi de la fuite, puis vient la tentative de viol par le “mari” refusé, et, en final, l’excision: cette inversion est significative. Comme Salimata, Nanyuma s’enfuit quand la coupe des refus et des violences est pleine et qu’elle ne voit plus d’autre issue. Mais le débordement, pour elle, se produit plus rapidement et plus catégoriquement. Signe, peut-étre, de la différence des époques. L’histoire de Salimata s’est déroulée bien avant les indépendances. Celle de Nanyuma est donnée comme contemporaine du film: quarante ans se sont écoulés et, si le film montre que rien n’a changé dans le comportement villageois, quelque chose a changé dans la tête des femmes, qui ont pris beaucoup d’assurance. Nanyuma s’enfuit donc avant le mariage, dans l’espoir d’y échapper. La fuite de Salimata montrait sa détermination, mais elle n’était pas seulement une rébellion. Salimata avait une forte motivation amoureuse. Le récit de cette fuite adopte un ton poétique et renvoie plus au conte qu’à l’épopée, même s’il est dit que Salimata affronte tous les risques de la brousse : Cette fuite! Par la nuit grise, seule, par une piste dans la brousse noire,

mystérieuse d’esprits, de mânes, infestée de fauves, un baluchon sous l’aisselle, elle s’était enfuie. Rien ne l’avait arrêtée, les peurs de la nuit, les

fauves, les serpents. Rien. (p.46).

La fuite de Salimata à travers la brousse nocturne hostile est racontée comme une épreuve initiatique, mais adoucie par la distance temporelle et l’éloignement que crée le système narratif. Le lecteur, tout autant que l’héroïne vieillie, sait que la poursuite du mari bafoué a été trop tardive et n’a pas abouti. Ils savent tous deux surtout que

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l'épreuve a été réussie, que Salimata a rejoint son Fama, a pu l’épouser et connaître au moins quelques années de bonheur. Rien de tel dans le film. Aucune distance, ni temporelle, ni narrative: la fuite est montrée en direct et au présent. Nanyuma est aussitôt poursuivie, par une troupe nombreuses de jeunes villageois portant des flambeaux. Aux plans alternés des poursuites classiques, s’ajoute l’effet de disproportion: elle est seule, dans la nuit de la brousse, sans rien qu’un petit baluchon. Les poursuivants sont nombreux, largement éclairés et gardent leurs rangs serrés. Pourtant, quand rugit la lionne, tous s’égaillent en hurlant, tandis qu’elle fait front, solitaire. Encore une fois le film utilise le grotesque: le groupe des hommes couards est fortement ridiculisé. (D’ailleurs, en se retrouvant au matin tous sains et saufs dans les arbres, eux-mêmes sont pris d’un grand fou rire). Les images sont frappantes et leur signification évidente: Nanyuma, la femme solitaire, forte de sa seule détermination, surmonte des dangers qui font fuir tous ces hommes réunis. Le héros qui triomphe des épreuves, c’est elle. Pourtant, la réussite immédiate de cette fuite épique n’est nullement suivie de la reconnaissance. A l’épreuve qualifiante ne succède aucune épreuve glorifiante, comme il advient dans le modèle épique traditionnel; l’héroïsme au féminin n’est donc pas du tout reconnu par la société. Au lieu de la gloire, Nanyuma ne récolte que d’autres épreuves, très humiliantes. Salimata non plus n’avait d’ailleurs récolté aucune “gloire,” mais au moins un succès et un bonheur relatif: c’est peut-être cela que cherchent les femmes, justement. La fuite de Nanyuma paraît pourtant réussir d’abord, comme avait réussi celle de Salimata. Elle parvient à atteindre la grande ville. Mais tradition, solidarité masculine et brimades des femmes n’y sont pas moins fortes: tout le monde rejette la fugitive, son pére la fait lier, mains dans le dos, par des cordes serrées. La scéne est trés pénible et le montage du film souligne le message en reprenant les premiers plans des chévres attachées au tronc. Dans Les Soleils des Indépendances, Salimata, aprés la mort de Baffi, mais avant sa fuite, était aussi reléguée: Salimata, seule avec ses malheurs, seule dans sa case, dans la concession, dans le village, nuit et jour et pendant des semaines, des lunes, des hivernages, s’écouta pleurer. (p.42)

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Mais elle n’est pas liée de cordes, ni traitée comme un animal. Nanyuma, elle, toujours étroitement attachée, est hissée sur un camion qui la ramène au village: ce retour forcé annule tout le trajet de sa fuite. Rebelle et rejetant la pitié inutile, elle gifle le voyageur scandalisé qui la délie. Salimata, est “léguée” au frère de son mari mort, Tiémoko. Tiémoko ressemblait en tout point comme les empreintes d’un même fauve à son frère Baffi, donc à Tiékoura aussi’ [...] avec des yeux brûlant du feu de la violence,

[...], la bouche toujours encombrée

d’injures et de menaces,

et

brandissant à toute occasion le couteau et le fusil. (p.42)

Dans Finzan, la charge est poussée plus loin, puisque Bala, le beau-frère, un violent lui aussi, est, de plus, l’idiot du village. Le mariage est montré comme un acte de violence: Nanyuma est maintenue serrée entre deux hommes qui contraignent sa main à signer, sous les yeux indifférents du commandant, pour une fois complice des villageois. L’autorité institutionnelle moderne collabore aux abus de la tradition: loin de s’améliorer depuis l’époque de Salimata, la situation des femmes a empiré. Les autres scènes, où Bala, armé d’un fusil, tente d’exercer son “droit” en violant Nanyuma, développent, avec la crudité des images, une situation analogue à celle de Salimata avec Tiémoko: Il l’a désirée, il en était fou et jaloux. Il dégaina un couteau. “Tu te coucheras avec moi...” et le brandit. [...] Le malheur était inévitable car Salimata raidissait à son approche, en elle remontaient l’excision, le viol, Tiékoura et les pleurs. (p.42).

Si l’on rapproche intertextuellement, comme le film y invite, la situation actuelle de Nanyuma de celle de Salimata, le discours du film paraît désespéré. Alors que Salimata parvenait à s’enfuir, aucune voie d’évasion n’est laissée libre dans le film. La situation est sans issue. Et la violence a augmenté. La détermination, le courage et la prise de conscience des femmes ont certes beaucoup augmenté aussi, mais leur condition, au moins dans les villages bambaras, s’est aggravée. Tout semble se passer comme si les tenants des contraintes traditionnelles, menacés de tou-

tes parts par le monde actuel, se raidissaient et menaient une lutte

” Tiékoura est le féticheur effrayant qui avait violé Salimata “dans sa plaie d’excisée” et déclenché sa terreur de l’acte sexuel.

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désespérée pour survivre. Ainsi, le chef de village, conversant avec le griot, va jusqu’à nier l’existence de “grandes femmes” dans le passé. Et la mère déclare à sa fille “Tu ne peux pas changer l’ordre des choses Cependant, le monde des femmes reste encore divisé, même si, peu à peu, une solidarité se fait jour. Le jeu des séquences alternées met en parallèle la lutte de Nanyuma et de Fili, et le combat du village entier contre les autorités abusives. Lors de la palabre où les villageois organisent leur résistance, les femmes arrivent silencieusement et imposent leur présence. Contre la contrainte d’ordre économique, le village fait front, dans l’unité. Les femmes participent, avec les hommes, au blocus de la municipalité, organisé pour libérer le chef de village arrêté par le commandant. Après cette expérience, les choses ne peuvent plus rester telles quelles. Les femmes s’organisent, osent prendre la parole, discuter, contester et même négocier. Elles se présentent en délégation devant le chef de village et leur revendication unie réussit à libérer Nanyuma de Bala, comme l’action solidaire du village et de la région avait libéré le chef. “Le monde a vraiment changé,” constate le griot. Mais elles n’obtiennent rien pour Fili, parce qu’elles ne sont pas d’accord entre elles sur la question de l’excision. L’excision semble conserver son pouvoir symbolique, sa valeur d’initiation, d’intégration a la société. Et son maintien reste largement assuré par les femmes. C’était le cas pour Salimata, dans le roman de Kourouma. La mère expliquait à sa fille le sens de l’excision: L’excision est la rupture, elle démarque, elle met fin aux années d’équivoque, d’impureté de jeune fille [...] Ma fille, sois courageuse. Le courage dans le champ de l’excision sera la fierté de la maman et de la tribu. (p.33)

Et, quand Salimata, évanouie sous le couteau de l’exciseuse, se voit privée du retour triomphal, elle se sent coupable de la déception de sa mère et ne remet nullement en cause la coutume, qu’elle a pourtant vécue comme une terrible violence. A l’opposé, Fili, dans Finzan, est une jeune fille moderne, une citadine non excisée, et fière de ne pas l’être. L’excision a donc changé de statut: elle est devenue un signe du traditionalisme villageois. Fili est trahie d’abord par une autre jeune fille, Sara, son amie, qui découvre le corps intact de Fili pendant qu’elles prennent leur douche

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ensemble. Sara s’empresse de dénoncer la non-excisée au chef du village, scandalisé. Mais c’est un groupe de femmes du village qui poursuit, capture, maintient et excise de force Fili, avec une sorte de

sombre jubilation. Les femmes se font ainsi les complices actives de la violence pourtant dirigée contre elles. La jeune fille n’est nullement consentante, ce qui donne à l’excision un caractère d’agression et de mutilation qu’il n’avait pas dans le roman. Mais Fili rejoint Salimata dans ses réactions à l’opération: évanouie comme elle, et en danger de mort, elle est emmenée d’urgence vers la ville, ce qui donne au film une couleur tragique. Cette scène d’excision est extrêmement brutale. Le groupe des femmes surexcitées, vues de dos, penchées sur leur victime, semble se livrer à une vengeance bien plus qu’à un acte rituel et solennel. Cette scène terrible précède juste la dernière scène du départ de Nanyuma et interdit l’optimisme que pourrait susciter la libération tardive de la mal mariée. Le film se montre très engagé et très scandalisé, mais aussi nuancé et un peu sceptique. Il reste encore aux femmes africaines, suggère-til, beaucoup de chemin à parcourir, et le départ final de Nanyuma a un goût doux-amer. Ce départ finalement toléré, mais comme un exil auquel Bala tente encore de s’opposer, s’accompagne des imprécations de Nanyuma. Elles rappellent, par leur caractère généralisant, la déclaration des Nations Unies, lisible au début de Finzan et permettent ainsi de boucler le film: "Nous donnons la vie et nous n’avons pas le droit de vivre,” crie Nanyuma. En s'inspirant librement des Soleils des Indépendances pour construire un film, peut-être un peu trop nettement déclaratif, mais très audacieusement engagé, Sissoko instaure un intéressant dialogue intergénérique avec le roman de Kourouma. Il rend hommage à ce roman en diffusant largement son message et en montrant qu’après vingt ans, le point de vue si audacieux de Kourouma reste d’actualité. En révélant ainsi la persistance immuable d’abus depuis longtemps dénoncés, le film prend une position bien plus pessimiste que le roman. Une position plus clairement engagée aussi, non seulement par son aspect déclaratif explicite mais surtout par la violence, parfois insoutenable, de ses images. Ainsi espère-t-il toucher un public beau-

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coup plus étendu et moins lettré: l’attrait des images est beaucoup plus grand que celui des livres, en Afrique (et ailleurs!). Mais Finzan modifie aussi considérablement l’optique du roman. La question de la condition féminine passe au premier plan: l'émancipation de la femme est devenue la condition même du progrès (et peut-être du salut) pour l’Afrique. Sur ce point, Finzan est représentatif d’un très fort courant du cinéma africain, que pourrait symboliser le titre du film de Désiré Ecaré, Visages de femmes. C’est le cinéma, beaucoup plus que la littérature, qui peut faire prendre conscience de l’une des énormes contradictions de |’Afrique contemporaine : Tandis que les hommes africains ont accepté le progrés dans certains domaines de la modernité, ils sont régressifs quand il s’agit d’abandonner les

privilèges des miles.’

Cependant, l’audace de Finzan a aussi ses limites, qui apparaissent mieux dans la confrontation avec Les Soleils. La protestation du film risque de rester, pour une partie du public, lettre morte, car elle se localise trés fortement. Alors que l’univers du roman de Kourouma est malinké, celui du film de Sissoko est désigné comme exclusivement bambara. Le monde des villages bambara est présenté comme un monde clos, résistant à toute idée nouvelle, et cela de façon assez insistante. Le chauffeur du camion qui ramène Nanyuma ligotée au village le formule nettement: “Ah, vous les Bambaras, vous ne changerez jamais avec vos histoires de femmes.” Ce genre de formule, tout en confirmant des préjugés ethniques bien établis, risque aussi de laisser supposer que les autres, les non bambaras, sont beaucoup plus progressifs, ce qui reste fort peu évident. Mais ce n’est qu’une petite restriction. Dans l’ensemble, Finzan 8 Visages de femmes rend hommage, de façon un peu décousue, aux femmes africaines, plus qu’il ne plaide pour leur libération. Mais il a pourtant ete pris comme symbole dangereux d’audace et d’émancipation, et interdit en Côte d’Ivoire pendant plusieurs années. À cause, en particulier, d’une (très belle) scène érotique où deux jeunes gens font amour dans un fleuve, en plein jour (ce qui constitue une double transgression: au niveau du film, qui montre ce qu’on ne saurait voir et au niveau des personnages, qui violent un tabou: faire l’amour en plein jour). Et peut-être aussi (a-t-on dit) à cause d’une … réplique un peu hardie: une jeune présomptueuse se vante de pouvoir “avec ses fesses . renverser le gouvernement”.

° Diawara, op.cit., p.144. (ma traduction)

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est un film remarquable. Il gagne encore en complexité s’il est lu dans son rapport avec Les Soleils. Cette lecture intertextuelle ne peut être celle du spectateur ordinaire, peu lettré. Mais elle ouvre des arrière-plans dans un film qui pourrait autrement paraître trop explicite. Or, il s’avère que le film ne se contente pas d’énoncer une prise de position très nette en faveur de l’émancipation féminine, en usant de tous les moyens propres à séduire le grand public, mais peut se lire à plusieurs niveaux, comme une sorte de réponse filmique à la littérature romanesque, en même temps qu’une réactualisation des problèmes qu’elle posait. Il montre le rôle que le cinéma africain peut jouer dans l’art et la culture: se faire le lieu même, passager et mouvant, Où se jouent à la fois la continuité et le changement.

WILLIAM

A. VINCENT

The Unreal But Visible Line: Difference and Desire for the Other in Chocolat Chocolat, by Claire Denis, is a film about desire and transgression set in colonial and post-colonial Africa. In the film, Denis posits a set of oppositions — black-white, African-nonAfrican, past-present, northsouth, male-female, colonizer-colonized — and asks whether they can be transgressed, by transgression reconciled, and by reconciliation fused. The main body of the film consists of a flashback to colonial Cameroon in the late 1950s. The frame story, set in the film’s present, begins in the south of the country, at a beach deserted except for a black man and his small son playing in the surf while a white woman — France — sits fully dressed under some trees beyond the beach. She is listening to a Walkman. She leaves and begins walking along a road. Shortly thereafter, she is offered a ride to Limbé by the man and his son. As she looks out the window at a lush landscape, the landscape changes to arid bush, and we are in the North, in the past; and France as a little girl is sitting in the back of a pickup truck. In the front are her father, Marc Dalens, French district officer at Mindif, and her

mother, Aimée. Riding in the back with France is the houseboy, Protée. These will be the main characters in the subtle drama that unfolds. The key metaphor in the film is the concept of the horizon. When a

plane flies over the post, France tells her father that it fell. Marc says that “planes don’t fall. They go below the horizon.” Later, Marc explains the concept of the horizon to France: When you look toward the hills, ... where the earth touches the sky, that’s the

horizon. ... The closer you get to that line the further it moves. If you walk

With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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toward it, it moves away. It flees from you. I must also explain this to you. You see the line. You see it, but it doesn’t exist.

By the time he finishes, France is asleep, but he is speaking directly to the camera, to us. | Denis reinforces this concept of the non-existent but visible line of the horizon by means of her filming techniques. She includes many shots of the horizon, beginning with the opening establishing shot of the sea, and continuing with several shots of the landscape of North Cameroon. In the South, aside from the opening shot, the horizon is obscured by trees and buildings. By her tight framing, she accentuates the horizontality of the buildings in the North — the post, the school- . house, and other village buildings. When she moves-the camera she almost always employs horizontal pans and tracking shots. Thus, she introduces the visual concept of the horizon long before its articulation. The post at Mindif has an inscription on its outside wall, put there by a German official before World War I: “This is the last house on earth.” Symbolically, therefore, the house must be located at the mythical line of the horizon. Here a number of other non-existent but visible lines converge — the line between the races, between the sexes; between the indigenous and the foreigner, between African and Western, between colonized and colonizer. And, true to its symbolic position, it is a place where those lines have been transgressed — the German official who built the post is said to have been killed by his “boys” — and are transgressed repeatedly throughout the film. Some characters in the film keep the lines that separate them from the Other firmly in their sights. The newlyweds, a French colonial officer and his bride, with their distrust of the African doctor, are two such characters. So too are the villagers who taunt Protée with his subservience to France and who are clearly on the verge of throwing off the yoke of colonialism. So, to some extent, is the Englishman, Jonathan, who dresses formally for dinner and carries with him a picture of the Queen to hang on the wall. But even he is seen to transgress one, perhaps two, of the lines of European politesse: he invites his hostess to sleep with him, seeking the same closeness he had experienced earlier when he had spent the night with Marc. Similar in character is the coffee planter, Delpiche, who repeatedly shows his contempt for the

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Africans; and who, when refused a ride to Yaoundé in a head man’s jeep, asks whether “they are running the place.” Like Jonathan, however, his transgression is sexual. He travels with his African “housekeeper” mistress and solicitously brings her food in their room: “Here’s some seed for my little chickadee.” Among the minor characters are several examples of refusals to keep within the lines. Enoch, the cook, refuses to speak French or cook French cuisine. Instead, he cooks in the English style, copying his dishes from a giant English cook book which he cannot read but which he regards with superstitious awe. The Norwegian missionaries labor, with little apparent success, to foist European religion onto the Africans. (“I must evangelize the natives.”) Marianne, from the neighbor-

ing plantation, has been having an affair with Segalen, a French exseminarian. It is also she who calls Aimée’s attention to Protée’s looks: “He’s handsome ... your ‘boy.’” All of the major characters attempt either to live as though the lines of difference do not exist or to step beyond the “end of the world,” driven by their desire for the Other. Marc, for example, is a model colonial administrator, courteous to the Africans, solicitous of their needs, ambitious to improve the infrastructure of the territory, diligent in his visitations to the far-flung reaches of his domain, keeping a

journal of descriptions and drawings of his travels. Jonathan remarks of him, “Marc is a dreamer. He loves this land, the people, the insects ….” For all of his love, however, he knows that he cannot be a part of Africa or its people. He recognizes that the days of French colonialism are numbered: “Some day they will kick us out of here.” He cannot

erase the bigotry on the part of the French or the bitterness on the part of the Africans: When Machinard rejects treatment by Prosper, the African doctor, all Marc can say is “I pity you, Machinard”; but he can offer no solace to Prosper. For Aimée, the lines are more clearly drawn. Despite her obvious attraction to Protée, she cannot accept it, alternately flirting with him and humiliating him. She orders him to stay in her room during an episode in which they are frightened by the sounds of a hyena, invites him into her room to button her dress, orders him out of her room when he is putting away her underwear, stalks by him without looking when he is showering in the outside “boys’ shower,” and glances at

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him provocatively when she and Marc are embracing. When Marianne remarks on Protée’s handsomeness, Aimée acts surprised, as though she had not noticed. Her final transgression, when from a fetal position she reaches out to clasp Protée’s leg, is precipitated by Segalen, who, obviously attracted to Aimée himself and recognizing the attraction between his hostess and her houseboy, invites her to “rub against Pro-

tée.” Perhaps, too, she has witnessed the fight between Segalen and Protée in which Segalen is vanquished and correctly reads that as a sign of Protée’s desire. But Protée shakes her to her senses, and she is left with no alternative but to reiterate and reinforce the conventional lines of separation between France and Africa, white and black, mistress and servant, married woman and unmarried man by having him exiled from the house. Segalen’s transgressions are deliberate and calculated for effect. We are first introduced to him riding in a truck with the African workers rather than in the jeep of his host and hostess. Yet, though he is with the Africans, he clearly is not a part of them. They, packed closely together in the truck, stay well away from him. He begins to work with them but quickly tires of the work and is only too happy to accept Marc’s invitation to stay at the post rather than with the workers. Once at the post, however, he refuses the offer of a bed and sleeps on the veranda, showers outside in the “boys’ shower” rather than inside, criticizes his fellow Frenchmen, and ends up eating outside with the servants. With obvious approval, he reads Aimée a passage by Gide of his time in Africa: Amidst bronzed black African faces the White skin color evokes something akin to death. In 1891, I, myself, having seen only colored people for months, once again saw Europeans near the Benoué. I found the white skin unnatural next to the fullness of black skin. Then why blame the natives for considering the White man as something contrary to nature, as a supernatural or fiendish

creature?

In Segalen, we see that the desire for the Other isall-encompassing. He not only desires the Other, as do the above characters, he desires to

be the Other — to be black, to be African. He has replaced the faith he gave up in leaving the seminary with the new faith in Africa: and his faith, he thinks, enables him to speak the unspoken, to articulate the non-existence of the visible lines of separation, and to suggest their absurdity: after all, hasn’t he obliterated those lines? What he fails to

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admit, of course, is that his faith is nothing more than a pose. Neither is he really at home with the Africans, nor they comfortable with him. Like Martin Luther’s self-mortification, Segalen’s self-imposed hardships are designed to convince himself that his faith is real. Thus, his resentment of Protée is not simply sexual jealousy, nor contempt for

the white man’s lackey, but rather is a result of Protée’s repeated challenges to his right to be African — to use the “boys’ shower,” to sleep on a bedroll, to use his position as the insider/outsider to play agent provocateur. The most interesting and complex of the characters is Protée. His name is fitting, because he has the protean task of living in both worlds — one black, African, and servile; the other white, European, and superior. His desire for the Other is as strong in its way as is Segalen’s. Trained by European priests, speaking French fluently, given a position of responsibility and command in the Dalens household, he is

nonetheless still a “boy,” not a man.' The positioning of the “boys’ shower” is powerfully symbolic in this regard. Unlike the European shower, which is secreted inside the house, the “boys’ shower” is in plain view, because the “boys,” not being men, are presumably neither likely to feel embarrassment at being exposed, nor — more importantly — likely to cause any at being seen. When Protée is showering and Aimée and France walk by, Aimée does not even glance in his direction, while France turns and looks at him — alittle girl showing natural curiosity about a “boy.” When Segalen showers, on the other hand, he calls out to Aimée to look at him. She does and is embarrassed. Because he is white, he is also a “man.” Protée becomes a “man” in Aimée’s eyes only as a result of Segalen’s taunting and his defeat at

Protée’s hands. But Protée’s desire for the Other entails more than Aimée, while

hers is limited to her desire for him. He also has loyalties to Marc and France and, beyond them, to the colonial system and the country of France. Despite his retention of his mother tongue, African eating habits, and vestiges of traditional religion he has compromised his Africanness to live in the white man’s world. That choice has resulted in ' The resemblance between Protée and Toundi, Ferdinand Oyono’s “boy” in Une Vie de boy (Paris: Julliard, 1958) is evident, as are the parallels in the plot and the relations between the characters.

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an exile from the African world: he is taunted by the village children,

aloof from the other African servants, and clearly not included among the men planning independence. In a sense, he is as much a “boy” to the Africans as he is to the Europeans. Yet he is fiercely protective of the European world, defending it against marauders like hyenas or Segalens. In the end, his loyalty to that world and its mores is stronger than his desire for Aimée; and for that loyalty he is expelled and made Just another “boy” instead of houseboy. The self-inflicted pain when he grasps the exhaust pipe in the generator shack is not, in his case, meant to reaffirm his faith, but rather to kill it. His physical agony reflects his internal agony — the pain of separation from the desired | Other, the pain of realizing that, like the horizon at which he is staring before France arrives, the conventional lines of difference, while they may not be reified, cannot be transgressed. As a child, France is the sole character who can dwell unselfconsciously at the “end of the world.” For her, the lines of difference

do not exist: after all, it is to her that the concept of the non-existent line of the horizon must be explained. She is comfortable in the A frican world, eating ants, learning the indigenous language, with one of the women servants spying on Jonathan undressing and laughing at the servant’s remarks about the Englishman’s hairy back and spindly legs. When she is supposed to be napping, she climbs out her window and joins the servants.

One of them remarks, “Not in bed? You’ll see,

you'll turn black and your father will scream.” When Protée marks her wrist with chicken blood, it is an acknowledgment of her “Africanness.” When she burns her hand on the exhaust pipe, that

mark of inclusion is in a sense erased. Like Protée, she is expelled to the other side of the line of difference. We must assume, then, that the adult France’s return to Cameroon

is in search of paradise lost. Clutching her father’s journal, she cannot, however, decide whether to risk a return to the North, to Mindif. As we first see her, sitting on the grass, with just her toes feeling the sand of the beach, watching the horizon intently, listening to her Walkman and not to the sounds around her, she is a picture of one estranged from Nature and from life. When he first picks her up, Parks questions her desire to walk to Limbé: “Going native, eh?” Going native is presumably exactly what France would like to be able to do, and cannot.

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She is attracted to Parks; perhaps he reminds her of Protée, particularly when his son begins to teach him the native language, as Protée tried to teach her. Parks is, however, only a substitute for the desired Other. An American, he has come to Africa in search of his own dream world: I remember the day I arrived in Africa. I was drunk. In customs, I felt like kissing the customs men, my brothers. I told myself, ‘That’s it, man, you’re home.’ I got ripped off by the first cabbie. He didn’t give a damn that I was black. He was probably right. Brothers here, brothers there. Yeah, I really stayed American. They don’t give a shit about guys like me here. Here, I’m nothing ... . If I died now I'd disappear totally.

We are reminded of the German graves so carefully tended by Aimée as if, without her care, the lives the graves commemorated would entirely disappear, swallowed up by Africa. France and Parks are perfectly matched — both outsiders in an Africa indifferent to their existence, he searching for a “home,”

she

thinking of a “house Id like to see again.” He has recognized the futility of his desire to transcend the horizon; she, perhaps not. When

she makes a tentative effort to seduce him, less forthright even than her mother’s gesture toward Protée, he rejects her. When he reads her burn-scarred palm, it reveals “no past, no future.” She is marked as an outcast.

We do not know whether France goes North. If the Cameroon Airlines plane that is being loaded at the end and then takes off is hers, we can guess that it is heading to France, since that is the likelier destination for the massive African sculptures that are being loaded. We may assume that she has heeded Parks’s advice to “leave quickly, before they eat you up.” We do know that even if she returns to Mindif, there will be nothing there for her, that the line of the horizon, the “end of the world,” can no longer be found there, if, indeed it ever

could. The film’s seeming non-sequitur ending — the long sequence of three workmen joking, laughing, urinating, and jostling one another — is surely no more whimsical on Denis’s part than is the choice of name for her heroine. This is Africa, the sequence is saying; these are its people. In this world, no matter how much they may long for it, no matter how much they may fill their museums and their living rooms with its art, there is no real part for either France the woman or France

v

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the country. What fusion is possible — like the Afro-pop record, “African Market Place” which plays during the final sequence — can only transpire when that which is White and Western has been swallowed up and transformed into that which is uniquely Black African.

I am indebted for some of the perceptions in this essay to one of my graduate students — Nina Magaña.

KENNETH

W. HARROW

Women with Open Eyes, Women of Stone and Hammers: Western Feminism and African

Feminist Filmmaking Practice In the Introduction to her Black Women Writing and Identity, Carole Boyce Davies defines the term “Black” provisionally and relationally, refusing to assign to it one fixed signified. Nonetheless, in all of its different nuances she finds a core of resistance, of oppositionality to the whiteness that would absorb it. ‘

:

:

A similar formulation might also be used to distinguish the approaches to feminism taken, in general, in the West — and more specifically in the theoretical writings of the French feminists of the 1970s, with its strong psychoanalytical approaches and disruptive strategies — from those followed by the preponderance of African women feminists, and more specifically those producing films around feminist themes. For the Europeans such issues as the status of the subject, gender identity, gendered language, patriarchy and above all oppositionality predominate; for the Africans, feminism is more a.

concern over gender equality and social or economic justice. One would overturn the club; the other would join it. We gratefully acknowleckdge permission to use images from Flora M’mbugu-Schelling’s These Hands and Anne-Laure Folly’s Femmes aux yeux ouverts, given by California Newsreel.

' Carole Boyce Davies: Black Women, Writing and Identity. (New York: Routledge, 1994), p.8. With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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For French feminists like Cixous, Irigaray and Kristeva, opposition to patriarchal structures led to a radical challenge to the ways in

which the subject was constructed. Following along with Derrida’s deconstructionist attacks upon logocentrism came feminist attacks upon the phallocentrist positions of a subject heir to Enlightenment values and to the Law of the Father. Barthes’s description of realism as an essentially bourgeois project, with the foundations of the novel

established in the rise of the 18th century bourgeoisie, led to conclusions that tended in the same general direction: the"powerrelations

view. Oona came to be associated with deviancy, hysteria, or, as transvaluated by Kristeva, the feminine.

Undergirding the ideology of the realist novel and that of mainstream commercial cinema is the dominant position accorded representation. In the Lacanian analytic approach, developed by Stephen Heath in “Difference,” representation is associated with the illusory wholeness of the Symbolic order, the “scene of the phallus”— phallus here taken as signifier of signifiers. It is not on the Imaginary, but on the Symbolic order that we function to restore the lost sense of wholeness, for our sense of ourselves and for the world around us, disrupted in the mirror stage. It is that wholeness that marks the gaze and its desire — desire not just to restore wholeness, but also to inform the object of sight with meaning. The scene of the phallus is thus integral to the pleasures of scopophilia, and is generated by the

positioning of the subject as the one who looks, and in the process

? Cf. Roland Barthes: Le degré zéro de l'écriture. (Paris: Seuil, 1953). * Cf. Stephen Heath: ‘Difference ” The Sexual Subject: À Screen Reader in Sexuality. (London, New York: Routledge, 1992).

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finds/produces wholeness and meaning.‘ If the mirror stage is marked by lack, by the castrating repressions of the Law of the Father, the sight of images organized into a wholeness restores the subject to a position of empowerment where its desires can be fulfilled. The subject is situated through the look, in contrast to the subject position associated with sound. This need for wholeness arises because sight naturally fixes on an object, endowing it with undividedness — at the limit with a perfection, expressed in film as a Ten, a seamless torso that can be seen without itself having a subject-position from which to return the totalizing gaze. For conventional cinema that perfect object is the site/sight of the woman. And when she is not a Ten, when she turns interlocutor, or better, mirror reflection, it is not so as to upset the action of the lens — camera oscura or ocular — but to af-

filiate her gaze with that of her admirer: Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as the perfect couple who see so much alike. This conventional totalizing gaze appears throughout virtually every scene in Warrior Marks (1994) in which each image is turned into a representation with its meaning tagged on beforehand. Its meaning is always undivided, whole, and is returned so as to confirm the a priori significations attached by the filmmaker — the one who looks and whose look imposes order. The’ final order, like Katherine

Hepburn’s universe, is.a pure reflection of the conventional signifyi À ; ing. While Alice Walker recounts her own story of ocular mutilation, concluding with the defiant gesture of the warrior, what is reinforced is the phallic order of the Symbolic, an order whose regime is so imperative that even the old women

circumcisors are reintegrated into an anti-circumcision

order. The truth ofthe film is grounded inthe notion ofaneutral,

_natural order where thereisnogendered speech, noécriture femiOÏ

SIIENCE,

OT à ne

* The equivalent action occurs when the signifier is affixed to a signified, or, more broadly, when language emerges as the ground for the subject-position. The “wholeness” of the subject then has its equivalency in the wholeness or meaningfulness of the object of sight.

° Women Warriors (1994), dir. Pratibha Parma.

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meaning, wi nd. The fears of Carole Boyce Davies that Black feminist criticism should be subverted or subordinated by mainstream Western or Western feminist criticism® can be seen to have been well grounded when we consider Walker’s dominant position in Warrior Marks, a position like that heavily critiqued by Trinh T. Minh-ha’ as belonging to the outsider who assigns to himself the authority to impose a meaning on every signifier — the authority Walker translates into the

woman warrior’s stance. The,symmetries ofthe Symbolic:are:not disist il ce

£

theconventional patterns ofmeaning inwhich theonly challenge to eye, oron thewomen’s genitalia —istodo battle on their own terms. ©

Representation, in film, can not avoid the implicit codes of mastery built into its own conventions, its anthropological positioning. Oppositional filmmakers could only escape these traps by establishing a self-conscious structuralism that insisted first upon meta-textual analysis, and then the rejection of meta-textuality, and finally rejection of a grounded text altogether. The end result of this rejection is an assemblage, a re-piecing together of scenes, laid disjunctively side-by-side, with a sound track placed in approximate proximity. The dead end of this filmic practice could only take the form of Trinh T. Minh-Ha’s question in Reassemblage, ‘a film about what?” or more apropos, the lapidary assertion, ‘1 find less and less the need to express myself.”* Julianne Burton has indicated the approach interpreters of Third Cinema, if not Third World cinema, must take to escape being trapped by Hollywood, mainstream cinematic values: pamaassasalspew preplace cuicesmeaning, theroleofthe:interpreter, ofThird. World filmisriicheie simply to Third Cinema initsproper socio-aesthetic.

* Davies, op.cit., p.52.

’ Trinh T. Minh-ha: Woman, Native, Other: Writing Post-Coloniality and Feminism . (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). * Reassemblage (1982), dir. Trinh T. Minh-ha.

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context..and.toees appraise its achievements in terms of its own cul: Such a simple formula occludes the problematic issue of representa_ tion and of the subject for the French feminists. A film about what? becomes, with many African women filmmakers, a film about women’s problems; the open ended texts of Cixous and Irigaray, l'écriture féminine, its silences and resistances, become, for mainstream African feminist filmmakers, films about questions for which

all the answers are provided. Open space,closes,down again.as the __ self-assured camera becomes the unseen, unobtrusive, invisible — Rene nentndsn een) J —

against PL

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VU

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een

the cinematic

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Similarly, the neutral space of the mediator, whose function 1s to place Third Cinema in its proper context, can be likened to the neu_tral language of standard speech, to the neutrality of dominant theoretical propositions, to the neutral values with which mainstream culture has always affiliated itself. Neutral and neutered return as dominant and gendered, or, in any event, like the camera, as posi-

aa

eng

m7 =. early work in Ngambika," Boyce Davies would seem to evoke an African feminist approach that moved in the direction of that same neutral, or universal, position when she writes, “An International Feminism to which various regional perspectives are conthe Eurotributed seems acceptable to African women while

X ? Julianne Burton: ‘Marginal Cinemas and Mainstream Critical Theory.” Screen 26:3-4 (May-August 1985), pp.2-21;8.

10 “The Laugh of the Medusa.” rpt. in Marks/de Courtivron: The New French Feminisms. (New York, Schocken, 1991), p.247.

"| Carole Boyce Davies/Anne Adams Graves: Ngambika. (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1986).

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pean/American is not.”’? The propositions of this International Feminism are then enumerated in programmatic fashion, and include concerns over ‘{the] lack of choice in motherhood and marriage, oppres- — ’ ; 2 D ee LAS i “ ‘ a

feminist theory.” In her more recent study Boyce Davies would seem to eschew such an Internationalist approach, as we see in her warnings against assimilation or cooptation; we now find the resistance of “Blackness” to a whiteness that seeks to depoliticize and to normalize, a resistance that resembles French feminism in its stance against patriarchal culture, language and practices that represent themselves, represent rep-. resentation, as normal, neutral, and apolitical, and ultimately as the ground for goodness. 1

"raser.

from Safi Faye to Sarah Maldoror to Anne-

ke Further, this is acinema inwhich the solutions putforthtakethe _established order. If we are to look for Burton’s placement of this cinema in its own cultural context, we would have to ignore its considerable distance from Third Cinema as disruptive, as “Imperfect Cinema,” as Garcia Esposito would have it,“ and recognize its adopting of mainstream anthropological or realist film practices and presuppositions. One finds in the writings of Assia Djebar, Werewere Liking or Calixthe Beyala a resonance with the call for an écriture féminine is'? ibid., p.10. ibid, p.7. On pages 8-10 Boyce Davies lists a series of principles which constitute an African feminist program. These positions read somewhat like a manifesto of female empowerment, and although they are constituted as Africa-specific, they remain on the socio-economic surface of the struggle and could be seen as differing little from early Western feminist liberationist positions transplanted to African soil. Radicalism remains political in this program, so that African feminism is understood to encompass a struggle not only in terms of ‘Sex o ppression,” but also in terms of class and race (11). 4 Julio Garcia Esposito: ‘For an Imperfect Cinema.” [1970]. Twenty-five Years of the New Latin American Cinema, ed. Michael Chanon. (London: British Film Institute, Channel Four, 1983).

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sued by Irigaray in the 1970s. Djebar has attempted to carry this project forward with her films, and it is important that we begin to assess whether the work of other African women filmmakers cannot also be seen as concerning itself with more radical feminist positions; whether, in other words, the act of seeing is not problematized so that the resistance to patriarchy is extended to the expressions of the body or to sound; whether the totalizing effects of visual representation are not resisted in such a way as to call into question the Symbolic order; whether film can be shot, edited, and its images abused so as to evoke something of Kristeva’s semiotic or pre-Symbolic chora, a space in which the terms “morality,” “equality,” and “knowledge” are not yet posited as answers; whether there is an African cinematic practice that resembles Heath’s description of the feminine specificity in writing, defined as ... either silence, she silenced in the discursive reality, the reality of discourse, or writing as silence, her silencing — Forrester’s forgetting — of the orders of language, her practice of a language that is wild, on the body, unauthorized.’

The key question, at the meeting of these two feminisms, is whether European feminists would regard African feminist filmmaking practices as inadvertently sustaining a patriarchal order and thus subverting their own goals. The question can also be turned in the opposite direction by asking whether the grounding of French femi-

nism in western theoretical and analytic values doesn’t automatically lead to a disjunction with African reformist feminist approaches. Are we dealing with a fundamental incompatibility, or are there valid criticisms of each position to be made. To determine the answer, we will turn to two films, Femmes aux yeux ouverts by Anne-Laure Folly and These Hands by Flora M’mbugu-Schelling, whose approaches will be assessed in light of this dilemma."

Femmes aux yeux ouverts begins with Martine I!boudo presenting three positions that implicitly lend support to the above critique of African feminism. The oppression of women stems from the prover-

bial beliefs that: 'S Heath, op.cit., p.73. 16 Femmes aux yeux ouverts. (1993), dir.Anne-Laure Folly; These Hands. (1992), dir. Flora M’mbugu-Schelling.

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e Women should follow all the instructions of their husbands: e Women shouldn’t be educated, shouldn’t read: e Women shouldn’t open their eyes.

From these statements we can derive the propositions whose Enlightenment values automatically follow: e All men are equal, meaning women like men should share in equality; + Knowledge is power, meaning women should share power with men: e Seeing is knowing, meaning women should seek understanding for themselves and not rely upon men to provide them with answers.

All these propositions rest upon the assumption that women’s problems derive from an uneven distribution of power, and that that is. entirely built into their relations with men. Once power is redistributed, like land, the problems will be solved. There is no questioning of the distribution system upon which power itself depends, certainly no challenge to an existent order. That would make little sense in a scenario in which women’s goals are to adhere to that order. Thus when we learn that women led the revolt against the government in Mali, it was not so as to create a new structure of power relations in society, but so that women could be part of the government. If this was not the point of the protest by the women themselves, it is implied in the film when we see that now there is a woman stepping into the limousine, and occupying the position of governor in the region of Bamako. Similarly, by the end, it is not a challenge to the distribution of capital in society that is mounted, but rather a celebration of the presence of women millionaires in Benin. The subjectpositions are reallocated without themselves undergoing any transformation. The highlighting of reading as a means of gaining access to power is significant. It conforms to an understanding of the Symbo lic order as the basis for all claims to legitimacy, and identifies the basic demand of the women’s movement in this film as adherence to the established order. This is reinforced by the third, and most prominent Proposition: that women be given sight. The subject-po sition of the sighted is that of the one who looks through the lens, whose seeing is recorded as testimonial to the truth implied in the vision. The epistemological position of the images of the women is that of passive ob-

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jects recorded by the camera as doubly feminized: they are seen as women because they are engaged in typical feminine activities, and because they are seen: The woman is to be seen, completely, she is all seeing, satisfied in that, always there in the mirror, hidden and visible, behind the keyhole; which is to say that, omnivoyeur, spectacle of vision, she has no look, provokes only in image and not as subject in return.”

If we have women on both sides of the camera, looking at each other, the images are no less totalized, no less undivided representations of those in need of opened eyes (femmes aux yeux ouverts). The voice-over that assures us of the presence, meaning, and needs of the women never turns back on itself, never sees the split in the mirror of its own devisings. It turns us outward towards a “condition” whose meaning is defined by the act of presentation: “Voila la condition de cette femme-là.”

“Femmes aux yeux ouverts”. Image of woman caught through bars of trees. [Fig. 1]

17 Heath, op.cit., p.79.

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“Femmes aux yeux ouverts.” Women framed by bough. [Fig.2]

“Voilà la condition de cette femme-là” presents the real as certain and whole; establishes the narrative space as equally undivided and authoritative; and even establishes its authenticity in the accented speech of the voice-over that is recognizably that of an African woman. Authenticity is thus self-authenticated, while our attention is

directed outward, towards the women on the other side of the bars,

the women held in the frame of the tree and its branch. [Figs.1, 2] The viewers’ point of view is shared by the narrator, and is subordinated to the order of the narrator, which is established not only by the camera but by the distance marker “Ja” tagged onto the narrative cette femme-là.

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“Femmes aux yeux ouverts”. Woman returning gaze. [Fig.3]

The bars suggested by the trees evoke a strange imprisonment, with Foucault’s tower and panopticon as the site of knowledge and power joined to the camera’s position. As the woman is defined as l’objet donné, We observe the woman observing the camera, looking back, at us; not challenging, but not ignoring the apparatus either. As the narrative voice continues to describe the women as passive and submissive, the images of the women seem to move in defiance of the bars, of the controlling space and frames, out into an openness. The dialectic is then established between the wonderfully aestheticized portraits, women held in perfect and perfectly natural frames, and those moving independently. La femme africaine, anonymous, defined, and compliant — the perfect image — contests the apparatus

as she is fixed by it. [Fig.3] There is little space in the film’s narration for free movement. We are continually told about the African woman and her predicament: “tout est à l’homme, vient de l'homme, doit finir à l'homme.” But in the end, it is the wealthy women merchants of Benin to whom everything belongs, and ironically it is not by the acquisition of ‘book’

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“Femmes aux yeux ouverts”. Demonstration of condom usage. [Fig.4]

not by the status of the educated, that their position is obtained. They are not literate and they carry on their computations in their heads — without Bic or calculator. The irony is not accidental. After the list of oppressions is concluded — the excision, forced marriage, AIDS — what remains, despite the Enlightenment program of reform, is the reconstitution of the woman’s image into a new identity, one so entirely removed from that Western ideal of enlightenment as to subvert the film’s own scientific propositions in the process of articulating and exhibiting them. This is the reading I propose to the extraordinary footage of the woman wearing conventional Muslim scarf and sunglasses who presents the techniques of utilizing condoms before a bemused male audience. The woman’s public role as health worker and family planner conveys the new attitude towards modernity, one underscored by her desk and “equipment,” while the conventional dress reaffirms her determination to shape her role within the space of her own cultural definitions. In contrast to the rational substratum and structuring of Femmes aux yeux ouverts, we have the exquisitely understated formulations of Flora M’mbugu-Schelling whose film These Hands provides the im-

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ages of women whose lives consist of pounding rocks for a living. Here one finds much that might be seen to be antithetical to Femmes aux yeux ouverts, despite their common reformist intentions.

“These Hands”. Women of stone and hammer. |[Fig.5]

Unlike Femmes aux yeux ouverts, which begins with three stated propositions to guide us along its trajectory, These Hands begins with silence, restraint, and a rhythm that combines labor and detailing — physical labor and meticulous cinematic detail [Fig.5] — and that ultimately succeeds in establishing a finely tuned rapport with the film’s audience. The viewer is joined by a fastidious, slow panning of the women’s blows, to experience with them the endless task of reducing large stones to small ones, of transforming a hillside into gravel, so that the trucks, driven by men, might cart it away. We don’t even know whether the women are doing this as some form of penal labor, or whether they are working for a mining concern, until the end of the film when we are informed that the mounds of gravel they are. heaping up, and that it takes a woman two weeks to produce, earns her twelve dollars.

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Patiently the film seems to be telling us this is how to pound a rock and break it into smaller and smaller pieces. And as we watch, we are gradually forced to enter the rhythm of the tedious work. We are, in fact, at a great distance from those films in which visual pleasure is bought at the price of the woman’s subject-position. In place of the erotic object, a new kind of cinematic woman emerges here — the woman of stone and hammer, deglorified, de-eroticized — full, not in

the sense of possessing a wholeness of meaning, but with the force of determination, of pedestrian persistence. This is one of the most wonderful of testimonial recordings of the African woman, one in which any superior sense of pity the viewer might feel is suppressed as the distance between “us” and ‘them’ is gradually effaced, and we spontaneously enter into a sympathetic sharing of the women’s lives. At one point there is apparently a rock slide and a woman is hurt or killed — we don’t know, can’t see, aren’t told what happened. Shortly thereafter a mourning song is intoned bya circle of women whose voices are now heard as they sing, “We remain with silence,” and, ‘In a strange jungle/there is only silence.” And carved out of the gravel pit, by their collective voices, their clapping of hands, is the dancing figure of a new grace who is supplicated, “Don’t disappear into vanity.” [Fig.6] Then the sound and sight of hammering return. There are no millionaire women at the end of this film, no women warriors, no victims even. Just stone hard images of women who

must persevere in what seems like a Sisyphusean effort at survival, and who yet can find it in themselves to laugh and dance and sing a song about longing for home. At the conclusion of the film a written text appears, informing us about the nature and payment for the women’s work. But the cinematic experience reaches for something other than statistical fact about the hardship of women migrant laborers. That other dimension we may also wish to include in our understanding of a newly shaped African feminism in which the new instrumentality of the camera now figures along with the voices and gestures of working women. In this regard, These Hands is exemplary for its quiet expressiveness

and restraint, which permit the cinematic experience to unfold as an “other” form of film.

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“These Hands”. “Don’t disappear into vanity.” [Fig.6]

One way in which to define that “otherness” may be found in John Fiske’s deployment of the concept of “distance” in cultural theory." Fiske demonstrates that markers of distance function so as to separate high and popular culture, so that a reading at a distance might be seen to yield universal, aestheticized meanings, whereas a reading in close proximity will foster historically or socially specific meanings. The former depends upon a social authority that is inseparable from the institutional context that frames the reading; the latter upon a closeness to bodily sensations, ‘for it is our bodies that finally bind us to our historical and social specificities.” The “‘mundanities of our social condition” are set aside in favor of a transcendental appreciation of universal values.

The application of this difference to our two African films is obvious. Femmes aux yeux ouverts strives to impart a set of values that '8 John Fiske: Understanding Popular Culture. (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989). John Fiske: ‘Cultural Studies and the Culture of Everyday Life.” Cultural Studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg/Cary Nelson/Paula A. Treichler. (New York, London: Routledge, 1992). | 1 Fiske, Cultural Studies, op.cit., p.154.

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are universally valid for women. It cannot attach itself to any mundane experience in women’s lives without simultaneously averring à principle that extends beyond the particularities of the moment. This is also true of Warrior Marks where the issue of distance is made all the more significant by Alice Walker’s presence, by her imbrication into the issue of excision in Senegalese culture and her refusal to acknowledge an indigenous justification for the practice. Fiske would employ the term distance to indicate a means of inhabiting a certain space, a “habitus,” as he would have it, borrowing the term from Bourdieu. Fiske’s elaboration of this form of inhabiting a habitus describes the Warrior Marks/Femmes aux yeux ouverts form of femi-

nist practice perfectly:

|

[It is] characterized by high educational levels, high cultural but low economic capital that has been acquired rather than inherited. And within this same habitus we may find the taste for congruent social and academic theories, a taste expressed in the dispositions for macro-theories that transcend the mundanities of the everyday through distantiation, that move towards generalized, abstracted understandings rather than concrete specificities and that try to construct academic or political theories that are as distanced, detached, and self-contained as any idealized art object.”

It is no coincidence that Ngambika and Femmes aux yeux ouverts begin with lists that define the condition of oppressed African women in general, and that the film presents that list by employing a the filmmaker, Martine Ilboudo, to provide the authoritative narrative voice. The “idealization” is clearly indicated by the truths we are invited to perceive, as is indicated by the yeux ouverts in the film title. The habitus constructed in These Hands is infinitely more modest. The “habits” of those who inhabit the space are reduced largely to the action of pounding rocks. Yet it is ultimately seen as a social space, where all the main “axes” of the social order appear, ie., economic capital, cultural capital, education, class, and historical trajectories.” The camera’s close-up, the repetition of shots of hands holding rocks, hitting them, taking up the pieces, hitting them again, taking up new pieces, hitting them again, brings us as close to the rhythms and

2 ibid., p.155. À ibid.

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physical experiences as can be done with film. The absence of narrative voice to guide us places us alongside, and not in front of, the women. It is a substitute habitus, whose substitution, through representation, cannot be expunged, but whose distantiation can be minimized. And so, although we eventually learn who the women are — “We” not being Mozambican women living in exile, pounding rocks in Tanzania — and are also invited to form our opinions about the conditions that result in such labor being compensated at a rate of $12 per two weeks, the Symbolic significance does not overwhelm the Imaginary. More to the point, the matrix of semiotic elements, to use Kristeva’s term for the presymbolic imaginary, is conveyed through the emphasis upon bodily signification at the expense of cognitive signification. The ‘message” is inscribed in the blows of the women of stone and hammer, in their fingers and arms, and in the

repeated sounds and actions that lead to the production of mounds of gravel. If it is through the body that ‘the mechanisms [work] that organize us into disciplined subjects required by capitalism,” then it will be through feminist theories of the body, and feminist films that approach the signifying practices of the body, that our appreciation of the disruptive potentialities of feminism can be realized. In our study of these African women filmmakers’ endeavors we can see the possibilities for a meeting of French feminist thought and African feminist film practice, as well as for the well-known collisions between Euro-centered theory and Afro-centered production.

2 ibid., p.161.

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Sarraounia: An Epic of Resistance Interview with Med Hondo by Francoise Pfaff Med Hondo is one of Africa’s leading filmmakers. Born in Mauritania in 1936, he has lived in Paris for the past thirty years. His film, Sarraounia (1987), portrays a nineteenth-century African queen who resists French colonialism. The picture received a number of prizes, including the highest award at the 10th Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO). Hondo’s other major films are: Soleil O (1969), Les Bicots-négres, vos voisins (1973), Nous aurons toute la mort pour dormir (1977), West Indies (1979), and Lumiére Noire (1994). Following are excerpts from interviews conducted in Paris in 1987 and 1994. It was translated from the French by Francoise Pfaff.

FRANCOISE PFAFF: Why did you make Sarraounia? MED HONDO: I wanted to illustrate authentic historical facts to show that the African continent was not easily colonized and had a history of resistance to colonialism. The film tells the story of a queen who opposed French colonial troops in the nineteenth century. Why did you choose a woman as the protagonist ofyour film? There were a number of African women involved in the fight against colonialism: Queen Sarraounia in Niger, Jinga in Angola, Ranavalona in Madagascar, Beatrice of the Congo, to name a few. We never speak of the role of African women in history, but they headed king-

doms and had an important status in matriarchal societies. We also tend to forget that present-day African women are very active and productive:

they raise children, farm, cook and run _ businesses.

With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam,

Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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Though I am neither a feminist nor a demagogue, I cannot discount the vital importance of women in our societies. The story of Sarraounia has been totally ignored by Westerners, but fortunately there are archives and books which enable us to unearth her past. Sarraounia is based on a book by Abdoulaye Maman, a writer from Niger, who used written documents as well as oral history to narrate this queen’s valiant deeds. The film ends as Sarraounia organizes her struggle against the colonial invaders. What actually happened to the real Sarraounia?

As mentioned in the film, the French colonial army reached Chad but never caught up with Sarraounia. The only difference between the film and historical truth is that in an attempt to capture her, the French burned the forest where Sarraounia was hiding. Since forests are scarce in the Sahel, I obviously could not have one burned for the film. Who is responsible for Sarraounia’s strikingly beautiful music? There are two types of music in the film. One comes from the oral tradition and is interpreted by Abdoulaye Cissé, who used traditional instruments such as the kora in his rendition of ancient melodies from the Diola region. Cissé also plays the role of the griot in the film. The modern part of the musical score was composed by Pierre _ Akendengue of Gabon, a very important African musician who has not yet received the recognition he deserves. I worked with him for almost two years. His score is simply extraordinary! I would also like to emphasize that I tried to work with as many people as possible from various areas of Africa. The author of the book on which Sarraounia is based is from Niger; one of the set designers is from Benin; the assistant scriptwriter is Mauritanian; and the editor is Cameroonian. Sarraounia is the result of the collective effort of people from different countries. At times, it was not easy, but the film was made in the spirit of unity and solidarity.

Which African languages are spoken in Sarraounia?

Interview with Med Hondo

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Summ

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Three African languages are used: Diola, which is the second language of Burkina Faso, as well as Peul and Tamacheck, which are spoken in both Burkina Faso and Niger. What was the budget for Sarraounia, and how did you get funding? The budget was three million US Dollars. The project was financed by Burkina Faso and my own film company. How and where was Sarraounia filmed?

Sarraounia was shot in 1986 in Burkina Faso. Soldiers from the Burkinabé army and other local people served as extras. Some scenes required up to 400 soldiers and as many as 2,000 paid extras. It is hard to find professional actors in Africa because there are few theatres and limited film production. There are only three or four professional African actors in the film. The French are all professional actors, but I carefully screened them. Through which channels was Sarraounia distributed?

The film premiered in Paris, but its initial distribution was sabotaged. The distributor did not respect our contract. The movie was to be shown in fifteen theatres but ended up being scheduled in only eight. It was shown for a week, then its screening was stopped. Why? I don’t exactly know why. Some people say that political pressures were exerted on the distributor, but I have no concrete proof of this. The whole thing was so scandalous that a number of filmmakers signed a petition to protest — Bertrand Tavernier, Constantin CostaGavras, Ousmane Sembéne, Souleymane Cissé.

Where has Sarraounia been shown in Africa? I gave a copy of it to Burkina Faso. It has been distributed in Cameroon and Mali. The film may soon be shown in the Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Guinea. Algeria wants to buy the television and commercial rights. However, all of this takes a very long time because African channels of production and distribution are anarchic and poorly organized. In addition, most African countries are as in-

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different as ever to local productions. Many people want the film but are not ready to pay its price. The title character, Queen Sarraounia, is played by Ai Keita, who lends great dignity to the part. She is not a professional actress. How did you find her for the role in Sarraounia? In Africa, since we don’t have a film industry, there are no catalogues listing actors’ ages and specialities to which we can refer. So filmmakers have to look for actors in the streets, which is exactly what I did. I auditioned a hundred people to play the role of Sarraounia — African, West Indian, Brazilian women. I practically covered the

whole Black Diaspora! And you finally found her in Burkina Faso?

I had already auditioned a number of Nigerian and Burkinabé women there. One day I was at a friend’s house and this woman appeared. I asked who she was and learned that she was Ai Keita, a family relative who lived in the neighborhood. ‘But that is Queen Sarraounia!”I exclaimed, “she looks exactly like the character!” She did an audition and passed the test. I worked with the actors for eight months before shooting. That’s the way filmmakers in Africa often select actors.

Has Ai Keita played in other films since Sarraounia? She still works as a nurse, but since that film, she has become the

queen of FESPACO, which she always attends. She is beautiful and beaming, happy to have a second profession as an actress. Since Sarraounia she has worked with other African filmmakers such as Djim Kola Mamadou and Moustapha Diop. I think she has played in two or three films. If cinema were more developed in Africa, she would certainly have acted in many more films.

In your film, Queen Sarraounia is an emblematic, mythic and legendary character. Did you sacrifice historical details in order to represent her in this manner? Abdoulaye Mamani and I worked hard on the character of Sarraounia, and I don’t think we sacrificed any historical details. Mamani gave me his manuscript to read before it was published. I told him: “You know, we’ll have to dig through history and find what the

Interview with Med Hondo

155

French have written on this queen.”I did research at the Bibliothèque Nationale, the French Archives and the Ministère des Colonies, while Mamani dealt with oral history. That’s how we shaped what you describe as a legendary character. But Sarraounia is not a legend; she

did exist and still does. She lives in Niger, in a village with a few straw huts. Now, however, she is more of a cultural symbol and no longer has

power. She is the Queen of the Aznas; she is chosen; she continues to select her men and make love as she pleases. One can go to see her. When I went, she wore a veil, because her face cannot be seen. This queen will probably disappear some day, since she no longer has any social or historical function. To people who don’t know African history, my film might seem the hagiography of an African queen. This would be totally inaccurate. It is not a hagiography. The nineteenthcentury Sarraounia was the way I described her — noble and dignified, with a staunch will for independence. She would not stand any sort of domination. Everything in my film is strictly true.

Did Mamani participate actively in the making of Sarraounia? Yes, and to a great extent. He is listed in the credits. We worked together on the scenes from beginning to end. I felt, and he later shared my views, that the part of the story about the presence of whites in

Africa needed to be expanded. In the novel whites intervene only two or three times. I felt that as a filmmaker, you cannot, with any objectivity and intellectual honesty, keep dominant individuals at a distance, remove them from the picture to the point where they become a mere detail. Colonization was not a detail; it was organized domination. In reality, there were 10 whites who had 2,500 blacks with them. They were the ones scouring the countryside and making his-

tory. In contrast to Sarraounia and a few others, many people collaborated. There were kings who collaborated with the whites for all sorts of reasons, saying, “They are like us” or “The prophet said so.” On a cultural level, as well as a visual level, Europeans also had to dominate space. In the film, we wanted to show the contradictions of co-

lonialism amidst images of Captain Voulet and other bloodthirsty

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whites, which did not exist in Mamani’s book. We had to send some-

one after him to show that some people thought he was going too far! He was allowed to kill, but he killed too many people! This somewhat resembles today’s humanitarianism: “Let there be massacres, but done slowly and according to the rules.” Everything had to take place the way it was supposed to. Today, you would use the term ‘politically correct.” The notion of sending a soldier who had a “clean” concept of colonization, the old Alsatian with glasses, after Voulet, did not exist in Mamani’s book, though he actually existed as a historical person. Mamani and I decided to reestablish him out of intellectual honesty, so that people would not accuse us of Maniche- — ism, and because things actually did happen that way. It took me seven years to prepare the film. I insisted that Mamani and I work together, just as I did with all the writers whose novel or play I adapt. We need to consult with each other and work in the same direction. I don’t want authors to tell me that I betrayed their story. I am the one dealing with the shooting as well as all the technical and artistic aspects of the film. Actors and the mise en scéne are my problem. But I have to be in total agreement with the author concerning the essential historical, social, cultural and ideological aspects of the film.

Has there never been any conflict between your ideas and those of an author with whom you have worked? None, the three times I have worked with authors.

Sarraounia is an illustration of the past, but could it also have a message about Africa’s future? You portray a queen who unified various ethnic groups, is this a message for present-day Africa? We used to say with Mamani — may his soul rest in peace, because he died in a stupid car accident — that Sarraounia interested us because of the past, but what we were most interested in was making the present speak. Today we don’t have a queen like Sarraounia, but a few years ago we had the Burkinabè leader Thomas Sankara. There are individuals who try to unite people. The only way to survive is to understand each other, develop together, share ideas and reflect on them together. In Africa, at any rate, I don’t see how we can exist and sur-

Interview with Med Hondo ape eee eee ee OO

eee)

157 CE

vive if we maintain what was imposed on us, that is to say, states as

they are today. I don’t see how we can get out of this fix, and I am very open about it. I see Mauritania with its flag, its army, its secret Service, its policemen, gobble up what the country struggles to produce. It’s the same in Senegal and Niger. Things don’t work and won't work the way they are now. I even tend to think that catastrophic events will continue to happen and spread throughout Africa. Sarraounia was a woman who, around 1900, almost a century ago, went beyond chauvinistic or nationalistic notions to say that you had to respect other people and live in community with them. You had to respect other people’s ways of thinking, but you could intermarry, work and develop together. Democracy in its simplest form is nothing else — “let’s unite, but don’t ask me to give up my Azna specificity and identity.” Things are much more complicated than that, but Sarraounia already had unionist and federative ideas. For reasons of dignity, she refused to be dominated, because any man worthy of that name, any woman worthy of that name, refuses to be subjugated. Sarraounia was made so that people could reflect upon the present, based on the past. If you don’t know the past, you cannot adequately measure the present, much less prepare for the future. We know that Sarraounia did not achieve its anticipated success in France. Was the film shown on European television? Did you manage to recover the money invested in the making of the film? The French television station TF1 bought the broadcasting rights, but Sarraounia has never been shown. The film was broadcast only on Channel 4 in England and ZDF in Germany. To answer the second part of your question, I have never made money from my films, either as producer, director or scriptwriter, because if I pay myself, there is no money left over, but this is a personal matter. Of course, the production costs for Sarraounia have not been reimbursed.

But you made your latest film Lumière Noire in 1994. How do you manage to make films under those conditions? Since I do not use cinema to make money for myself, I invest everything I have in films, even my salary, which comes from dubbing

American actors into French. It also takes six or seven years to make

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each of my films, and this is too long, inadmissible, but I don’t have any other choice! I have to be patient! I start working on the film and invest my salary, which, of course, is not enough, but it encourages some institutions to say: ‘This guy is pestering us, but at least he is serious.” So they give me 500,000 francs here and 400,000 francs there. I end up with a small budget to make the film. I know that Sarraounia received a number of awards. What has been their impact?

Sarraounia received a number of prizes and many very good critiques, as has been the case for almost all my films. Unfortunately, prizes don’t mean anything and are of no use. We have to demythify awards; they don’t have nearly the same value for African directors as for others. Awards have never brought producers to me. I have never found a co-producer who agreed to make a film with me because I won awards. It is sad to say, but critical success and succés d’estime don’t fill my pockets; they do not provide the financial means to make other films!

J.B. TATI-LOUTARD

Three Poems from Poèmes de la Mer / Poems of the Sea Féerie II: L’aube Aux mânes des Négriers

Tous le loups de mer ont déserté cette côte Et se sont assoupis Derrière le soleil où l’on croit les morts. Au souffle berceur de cette mousson de paix

Qui pérégrine vers les terres, Les amants pris dans quatre lianes Retissent la vie; Et dans l’aube qui se lève, la mer,

Vieille rapace lasse, Marche à pas de colombe parmi les graviers.

Charm II: Dawn To the souls of the slavers

All the sea-wolves have deserted this coast And have dozed off Behind the sun where the dead are sleeping. To the rocking lullaby of this monsoon i Of peace which wanders earthwards

Lovers locked in their four lianas Draw up life; And in the lifting dawn the sea Tired old vulture Walks with a dove’s steps among the pebbles. From: J.B. Tati-Loutard: Poémes de la Mer/Poems of the Sea. English translations by Gerald Moore. (New Horn Press, Ibadan, 1990), distr. exclusively by African Books Collective Ltd., Oxford. With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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Liberté

La tornade libére une myriade d’insectes Clos dans le ventre de la terre; Ils croient l’heure venue d’entreprendre L’ascension du Mont-Soleil Et leur rêve étouffe dans le bec des hirondelles. Chaque jour je veille ma vie J’en éloigne une jourbarbe de rêves Je découpe toute effilure des songes Nés sur la paille fertile de la nuit. Et tous ces parasites s’en vont nourrier le vent ... Ainsi midi incendie mille songes Quand le soleil debout nous dit toute sa clarté; Au village on bat le tambour de la Liberté A rompre la peau; Mais rappelez cet homme qui s’en va dansant Pieds nus Par les sentiers où les épines hurlent encore De hargne.

J.B. TATI-LEOTARD

Four Poems rn

Liberty The storm sets free a myriad of insects Locked in the belly of the earth; They think the hour has come to undertake Ascent of the Sun-Mountain And their dream stifles in the swallow’s beak. Each day I guard my life I cut back a shoot of dreams I sever every filament of vision Bred in the fertile straw of night. And all these parasites go to feed the wind ... Thus noon burns up a thousand dreams When the vertical sun speaks its clear syllables; In the village they are beating the drum of Liberty Ready to burst it; But remember that man who dances on With naked feet By pathways where the thorns still cry out With bitterness.

161

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Féerie IV: La nuit

Je n’aurai pas peur sur ce rivage Que balaient le soleil et la lune, Désormais présents Jusqu’au large du continent; Je n’entendrai nul battement d’ailes De rapaces, Hors la voix des mouettes Trois fois peureuses de mon ombre; Nul navire ne volera de visage au rocher Jusqu’a l’heure ot le soleil veillera la lune Jusqu’a l’heure où la lune veillera le soleil; Je n’aurais pas peur sur ce rivage: Le sang de l’esclave est devenu bleu Dans les veines de la mer.

Charm IV: Night I will fear nothing on this shore Brushed by the sun and moon Present henceforth From here to the quick of the continent; I shall not hear the hawks Beating their large wings Above the cry of seagulls Thrice fearful of my shadow. No ship will steal across the rockface Until the hour when the sun awakens the moon; Until the hour when the moon awakens the sun; I will fear nothing on this shore: The blood of the slave has turned blue In the veins of the sea.

J.B. TATI-LEOTARD

NANCY

J. SCHMIDT

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers: Agendas for Research with a Filmography … les cinéastes africains ont besoin de leurs soeurs à leur côté et à tous les postes, sans exception, et qu'il y a une grande place à prendre par les femmes dans le cinéma africain.

’ Caveat If I have learned anything in nearly 15 years of research on filmmak-

ing by Africans, it is that not enough isknown about filmmaking in ~

every sub-Saharan African country tomake generalizations about the— subcontinent; and that much that has been written about African filmmaking especially in the West, but also in Africa, is hemmed in

by implicit biases about filmmaking being primarily featuresfilmss.

there isa film industry. This kind of writing does not lead to an understanding of filmmaking in Africa.

t

l 1 ry. This essay focuses on the kinds of research that need to be conducted to identify and learn about all women’s filmmaking activities. As the quotation above suggests, women areactive inmanyfacets offilmmaking, not justas

! “Were Were Liking écrivain, metteur en scène.” Les Journées du cinéma africain 1989. (Montréal: Vues d’Afrique, 1989), pp.15-16; 16. With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

NANCY

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J. SCHMIDT

film directors: The filmography at the end of this essay includes only feature, documentary and television films that I have been able to learn about. It excludes video projects that I am aware of, since I have not had time to do research on the films completed by these projects. However, it is essential that research be conducted on women’s selfhelp video projects sponsored by governments and non-governmental organizations, since they have potential impact for women as both filmmakers and film viewers. I read more than 7,000 sources in compiling the two volumes of my bibliographies of sub-Saharan African films and filmmakers.’ Although I regularly consult newspapers and popular magazines published in Africa, the volume of publication is too.vast for any one person to consult. Perhaps as a bibliographer I understand better than most people who write about African cinema that what we know, or Basic bibliographic research on African filmmaking remains to be done, for both women and men. What is needed for every African country is an audiovisual bibliography/filmography comparable to Bernth Lindfors’s Bibliography of Literary Contributions to Nigerian Periodicals. Only after detailed research has been conducted on all aspects of local film production in all African countries can generalizations be made.‘ The following essay can provide only suggestions about some of the research that is needed. RK

African and Third World women filmmakers were the focus of Les Journées du Cinéma Africain in Montréal in 1989, the Mannheim > Nancy J. Schmidt: Swb-Saharan African Films and Filmmakers: An Annotated Bibliography. (London: Zell, 1988); Nancy J. Schmidt: Sub-Saharan African Films and Filmmakers 1987-1992: An Annotated Bibliography. (London: Zell, 1994).

> Bernth Lindfors: A Bibliography of Literary Contributions to Nigerian Periodicals 1946-1972. (lbadan: Ibadan University Press, 1975). “ A problem with the majority of publications on African cinema is that they are journalistic, not scholarly. I have dealt with the problems with the literature on African cinema, which are too numerous to be discussed here, in “The Bibliography of Films by Sub-Saharan African Filmmakers.” Africana Resources and Collections: Three Decades of Development and Achievement, ed. Julian Witherell. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1989), pp.151Lg

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers e e ee e ee SE

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Film Festival in 1990, and FESPACO, Festival Panafricain du Cinéma de Ouagadougou, in 1991. This attention represents a significant change from 1976 when Safi Faye, Africa’s best-known woman filmmaker internationally, was the only Third World woman who participated in the Festival International de Films de Femmes in

Brussels. Yet theparticipation ofAfrican women ininternational film. i

ee

i

en.

Nearly two decades ago, Paulin Vieyra, the premier historian of

African cinema, pointed to the neglect doc ofumenta and televisi ryon” films by:thosewho write about African cinema.’ More recently Frank Ukadike has argued for the contextual discussion of feature, documentary and short films.* At the Carthage Film Festival in 1990 the

colloquia emphasized the worldwide growth oftelevision, thepotenns De LES GED ETAT fil

_distribution, and called for a+ more coherent strategy for the future de-_ nd Arab countries.’ Both FESPACO and Les Journées du Cinéma Africain now include television films. Alexis Kalambry has called attention to the important roles of women in television in Mali and the need for new vocabulary to describe the positions they hold: “Comment appelle-t-on une femme à la camera? Et celles qui prennent le son ou font le mixage?”*

Since African women make far more documentary and television

films than feature films, their activities have gained relatively little

international attention. The potential oftelevision and documentary.

films has beenneglected even inAfrica according to Tam Fiofori,

who noted the high qualityofsome’80"Nigerian. television. films

shownatanationaltelevision program festivalin1986andthehigh

quality documentary of films produced inGhana.’ Women are among * Paulin Soumanou Vieyra: Réflexions d'un cinéaste africain. OCIC, 1990), pp.63-65, 101-111.

(Bruxelles: Editions

* Frank N. Ukadike: Black African Cinema. (Berkeley: University of California Press,

1994).

” “Carthage 90 le marché a l’honneur.” Unir cinéma 149 (1990), pp.33-36. * Alexis Kalambry: “Les amazones du son et de l’image.” Les Echos 21 Oct. 1994, p.4. * Tam Fiofori: “The neglect of local films.” Times International 22 Dec. 1986, p.32.

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the makers oftelevision films inNigeria anddocumentary films in EF

bin

films in the 1960s. Efua Sutherland, the well-known Ghanamaking ian playwright, made Araba the Village Story, a 13-minute film providing a child’s view of her village and family, with support from an American television company in 1967, while Thérèse Sita-Bella, a Cameroonian journalist, made Tam-tam à Paris, a 30-minute film of a performance of the National Dance Company of Cameroon in Paris,

between

con

1963 and 1966." Since»African»men supposedly started

OS

Sie

we

»from near the beginning. The real beginning of African filmmaking is a subject for further research, as is filmmaking by women in the early years. One need only recall the inaccurate statements made about the “birth” of African literature in the 1950s when literary historians ignored works published on African presses at earlier dates, to encourage caution when reading contemporary histories of African film that take as their model histories of feature filmmaking in the West. When some 50 African women film professionals met at FESPACO in 1991, more of the participants were actresses than filmmakers. Among the participants were five women who at that time were directors of ministries or other national institutions related to film, radio Boni Claverie Ouédraogo of these women,

and television: Michéle Badarou of Benin, Danielle of Côte d’Ivoire, Sokhna Dieng of Senegal, Aminata Burkina Faso and Mariama Hima of Niger. Three of Badarou, Ouédraogo and Hima, also are filmmakers.

"In the written literature about all kinds of African films a clear distinction is not always made between directors and producers. Some producers may have inadvertently been included in this discussion because of inaccurate or incomplete information in the written sources that were consulted.

” Three different dates are listed for this film: 1963 by L’Association des Trois Mondes: Dictionnaire du cinéma africain, vol. 1. (Paris: Karthala, 1991), p.92; 1965 by Guy Jérémie Ngansop: Le Cinéma camerounais en crise. (Paris: L'Harmattan, TOS apes: 1966 by Claire Andrade-Watkins: “France’s Bureau of Cinema: financial and technical assistance between 1961 and 1977 — operations and implications for African cinema.” Vis-

ual Anthropology Review 6:2 (1990), pp.80-93, 91. While date discrepancies of a year are not uncommon in published sources, this much discrepancy is not typical. Since I have not seen the film, I cannot resolve the discrepancy.

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers e e a ee

oyap aeeee 167

The women film professionals recognized that they need to know

~more about each otherand todevelop networks among themselves.

One of the four major proposals made at the conclusion of their dis-

cussions was to compile an inventory of African women working in

iS he compilation of such an inventory would be a major step in facilitating research on African film, since surveys of African filmmaking usually focus on film or television and exclude video. The directory, Femmes d’images de l'Afrique francophone, is a useful beginning, but is far from complete for francophone Africa. Although diaspora filmmakers participate in FESPACO, it is notable that diaspora women were excluded from making formal presentations at the meeting of women film professionals in 1991, since the African women wanted perspectives from inside Africa The other major proposals that resulted from the discussions were to éfi-

trainstaffforamobile filmtraining unit. The latter recommendation is related to the long-“standing problem of the paucity of training facilities in Africa. Les Journées du Cinéma Africain, Which has been held annually in Montréal since 1985, has a formal relationship with FESPACO. The 1989 festival which focused on African women as film subjects and film professionals included participation by African women filmmakers, actresses, scriptwriters and journalists. Among the films made by

African women which were shown, most were’televis andion docuiter ctinces + ae As these film festivals exemplify, the current interest in filmmaking in Africa occurs in con-

Françoise Balogun: “Scope for the future” West Africa 8-14 April 1991, p.523: “Honneur aux femmes africaines de l’audiovisuel.” FEPACI Info 5 (1991), p.2. © Vues d’Afrique: Femmes d'images de l'Afrique francophone. (Montréal: Trait d'Union Culturel, 1994), 14 Assiatou Bah Diallo: “Les femmes a la recherche d’un nouveau souffle.” Amina 253

(1991), pp.8-9.

C£ Les Journées du cinéma africain 1989. (Montréal: Vues d’Afrique, 1989.). This festival includes Canadian and diaspora participation. Each year’s festival has a different thematic focus. Women regularly participate even when the thematic focus is not on women.

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NANCY J. SCHMIDT

texts that include television film (whether it is video or film) and documentary as well as feature films. In the following discussion I take the same general approach as I did to the study of Nigerian literature in the early 1960s.'* I survey, to the extent that is possible from written materials, the kind of activities that are taking place, making no judgment about what is significant or insignificant, “good” or “bad,” and raise some questions that need to be answered if filmmaking by women in sub-Saharan Africa is to be understood in the cultural contexts in which films are being made and viewed. In a short article neither a complete survey can be made nor a comprehensive research agenda outlined. The discussion that follows is biased by the written sources that I have been able to con-. sult. It has not been possible to provide examples from all sub-Saharan countries.

Range of Activities Sarah Maldoror is included in directories of African filmmakers and widely discussed as an African filmmaker. She is Guadeloupean by birth, Angolan by marriage and works in Paris. Only a few of her films have been about Africa, but Sambizanga established her credentials as a maker of revolutionary film about the Angolan liberation — struggle. Is Maldoror an African filmmaker? As she has observed, her West Indian origin is not relevant; Africans consider her an African filmmaker.” However, she was excluded from the meeting of women film professionals at FESPACO in 1991."* More relevant is why some Africans consider her to be an African filmmaker, and what has been

her influence on African filmmakers, including women. Has her influence been on films with revolutionary themes? What African '* Nancy J. Schmidt: An Anthropological Analysis of Nigerian Fiction. [Ph.Diss., Northwestern Univ., 1965].

” Michel Larouche: “Le temps que l’on met à marcher. Sambizanga (1972) de Sarah Maldoror.” Films d'Afrique, ed. Michel Larouche. (Montréal: Guernica, 1991), pp.21-

39:23.

'* Cf. Diallo, “Les femmes,” op.cit.

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers a e at

169

filmmakers are included in her personal networks? Have her Parisian contacts benefitted other African filmmakers? How has her presence at African film festivals influenced African filmmaking? Ngozi Onwurah, of mixed Nigerian-British parentage, lived for several years in Nigeria, but has spent most of her life in the U.K. where she makes films with her own film company. She is a generation younger than Maldoror, at the beginning of her career. Her short

film

‘they are made. Onwurah is one of a growing number of African filmmakers who work in the U.K. One of her mentors is Spike Lee.” Now that Onwurah has made Monday’s Girls in Nigeria, will she be

considered an African filmmaker? Will the place of her birth have any relevance for her potential influence as an independent filmmaker on Nigerian film? Onwurah’s future influence on African film, like Maldoror infl seven ur al Werewere Liking, the well-known Ivorian playwright, has made a television video, Regards de fous, of her successful stage play Dieuchose. Because of her experience as a playwright, her participation in filmmaking has included more than making one film. She adapted Bernard Dadié’s play Monsieur Thogo Gnini for Sou Jacob’s film Le Grotto, and designed the puppets for Mambaye Coulibaly’s Le Geste de Ségou.” Coulibaly is Malian and Jacob is Burkinabé, indicating Liking’s Panafrican influence. Have other women used their experience as dramatists in making their own films or collaborating with others? How have they developed personal and professional networks among African filmmaking personnel? Léonie Yangba-Zowe makes documentary films, in super 8, of dances and rituals in the Central African Republic in the tradition of Cf. “Coffee coloured talent.” West Africa, Sept. 3-9, 1990, p.2393; Pam Cook: “Coffee Coloured Children.” Monthly Film Bulletin, Oct. 1989, p.316.

° Cf. “Coffee-Coloured Talent”, op. cit. 21 “Were Were Liking”, op.cit., p.16.

170

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francophone ethnographic film. The French Ministry of Cooperation has provided support for her films, as it has for many African films,” and her films have been distributed in France. How widely have her films been shown in Africa outside the Central African Republic? What is the reception of her films in the Central African Republic? Has her documentary approach influenced other Centrafrican filmmakers? Yangba-Zowe is among a growing number of African filmmakers who are studying in France and writing theses on African cinema. Her thesis is on the late Nigerien filmmaker, Oumarou Ganda.” What is the influence of her formal film study and personal contacts she made in Paris on her filmmaking? What will be the influence of greater familiarity with the acting and filmmaking of Oumarou Ganda on her filmmaking? Will the focus of her thesis on women in Ganda’s films influence the focus of her future films?sLike

_many African womenfilmmakers, Yangba-Zowe’s filmshavenothad | an,exclusive female focus. Debra Ogazuma, like Yangba-Zowe, incorporates local perform-

ance in her films. Hau oral sa” literature is the basis of her 52-part

television series, Magana Jari elevisio

Orporation

Ce

made in Haufor sa the Nigerian

and subsequently produced

Enghs

D d-

n. The stories are read and acted, and some episodes include stories within stories, as when two chiefs challenge each other regarding whose parrot can tell the best stories. Ogazuma’s

Son

D

one of a number of women who make What kind of personal ties exist anong in Nigeria? How are their experiences different from those of men who make

cog

TT is .

films for Nigerian television. women television filmmakers as filmmakers similar to and films for Nigerian television?

* Cf. Andrade-Watkins, op.cit. ” Rosette Léonie Yangba-Zowe: Divers aspects du mariage et le rôle des femmes dans l’oeuvre cinématographique d’Oumarou Ganda (Niger). [Mémoire diplôme de PEHESS,

1987].

* Her thesis and most recent film were completed in the same year. ** Comments made by the filmmaker at the showing of several episode s from the series at the African Studies Association annual meeting, Baltimore, November 2, 1990.

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers T e

171

Where do they receive their training and experience before they make their own films? Gold Oruh, a Nigerian Television Authority news producer, made her film Away from the Sidewalk on her own time and partly from private funds, although it had NTA sponsorship. * Shemade this —

ruh’s experience asatelevision news producer on her filmmaking? How was official support, like that of the NTA, obtained for independent filmmaking, and how

did Oruh obtain private funding for her film?

, according to reports in published sources. In Angola and Mozambique women have made films in association with national film centers that since independence in the mid 1970s have primarily sought to support nation-building and have produced primarily documentary and television films. Fatima Albuquerque’s documentaries exemplify the broad range of this documentary activity in Mozambique, from musical performances in Le Son c’est la vie to the devastation caused by RENAMO in No meu pais existe uma guerra. What is the influence of nationalist ideology on films made by women in Angola and Mozambique? How much choice do women have in the subjects of their films? What roles, in addition to those of filmmaker, do women have in these countries and how do these roles influence their filmmaking? _ enet LALA

. For ex-

ample, Brenda Goldblatt’s, Grinding Stones, is about opposition to

?° Soji Omotunde: “Women on the sidewalks.” Newswatch 1:11 (1985), p.36. ” Toyin Akinosho: “Television producer screens political contributions of Nigerian women.” Guardian (Lagos) 23 June 1985, p.3.

172

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Elaine Proctor clandestinely shot . 1986 and 1988,* rred between occu Sharpeville Spirit, which focuses on the continuing impact of the

Sharpeville massacre on the township in 1984, and which permits the residents to speak for themselves. Proctor also has made a film in Sotho, with English subtitles, Re tla Bona, which depicts rural South Africans who live on the margins of economic existence, and focuses on health and literacy projects for women.” How has apartheid, and recently the official end of apartheid, influenced women’s filmmak-

ing in South Africa? How are the activities of “ progressive” women filmmakers related to those of other “progressive” filmmakers in South Africa? What are the cinematographic models for South Afri- — can women’s films? Women in Zimbabwe, like those in South Africa, Angola and Mo-

zambique, are able tocomplete their films with local production faZimbabwean women also have obtained . Road to Survival, a series of films on environmental

problems by Pattie Pink, was produced in Shona, Ndebele and English and supported by the Zimbabwe National Conservation Trust and local Rotary Club.” How does the financial sponsorship of such films influence their content? What are considered appropriate topics for documentary films? Miriam Patsanza made Woman Cry on rural disabled women,” but Edwina Spicer was unable to complete Aids — the Killer Disease, despite financial support. Spicer’s Biko: Breaking the Silence, was well-received in Zimbabwe and also was the first Zimbabwean documentary to be sold internationally, to BBC’s Chan-

# Charles Leonard: “KwaNdebele’s anti-homeland battle examined in festival film” Weekly Mail (Johannesburg) 14-20 Sept. 1990, p.11.

# Cf. Les Journées du cinéma africain 1988. (Montréal: Vues d’Afrique, 1988), pp.3425

” Cf Reyhana Masters: “Video film series looks at environmental problems.” Herald (Harare) 2 June 1987, p.9.

* Shehnilla Mohamed: “Focus on rural disabled women.” Herald (Harare) 11 Oct. 1985, p.5.

ai}Cf: Edwina Spicer: “Film-maker hits back.” Herald (Harare) 24 May, 1988, p.6; Ziana: “Minister explains AIDS film ban.” Herald (Harare) 2 July, 1988, p.3.

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers mm mm

173

nel 4.* What will be the impact of this international recognition on Spicer’s career and the future development of documentary film in Zimbabwe? What will be the influence of Miriam Patsanza now that she has become a film producer based in South Africa? What are white women filmmakers doing to share their experience and expertise with other women in South Africa and Zimbabwe? Student filmmakers are only occasionally the subject of written

materials. Afi Yakubu was among the students from Ghana’s Namr

| on inBeilin in| 1988 and the International Medical and Scientific Film Festival in Parma in 1989.% What additional training and experience did she receive before making Bondage in 1994? What has been the influence of her participation in the meeting of Anglophone women film and video producers in Accra in December 1991 and her role as SecretaryGeneral of the organization on her filmmaking?* Short films made by Ruby Bell Gam, Ijeoma Iloputaife and Anne Ngu when they were students at the University of California, Los Angeles, were described

in an article on black women filmmakers. * Alloftheir films focus on Yet the article does not answer such important questions as how

these women from Nigeria.and,Cameroon were influenced bystheir ini

UCL,

ith

ot!

loi

SRE

Much research needs to be conducted on training facilities in Africa and abroad, on who attends these facilities and which aspects of filmmaking are studied. e

tomorrow’s director. For example, before making an animated film, L’Enfant terrible, Kadiatou Konaté worked for Films Cissé for sev* Jane Soper: “Zimbabwe’s film industry ‘moving into new era’.” Sunday Mail (Harare) 4 Oct. 1987, p.10. * Cf. “Awards for African films.” Afrika 5-6 (1988), p.36; “Harvest at NAFTI.” Concept (Accra) 2:1 (1994), p.13. *° Ajoa Yeboah-Afari:“African women. form guild.” West Africa 20-26 Jan. 1992, p.129. °° Claudia Springer: “Black women filmmakers.” Jump Cut 29 (1984), pp.34-37;36.

174

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eral years in a variety of roles and on Mambaye Coulibaly’s animated film, La Geste de Segou.” Marguerite Ahyi, a television camerawoman in Benin, aspires to be a filmmaker.* Will she fulfill her goal, and, if so, how? Learning about women from their first introduction to film, rather than focusing on women only after their first notable achievement, is essential for understanding filmmaking by SubSaharan African women. .

Three Profiles

Safi Faye is the best known African woman filmmaker internation-

_ally, but sheis neither the first African woman filmmaker nor the _independentAfrican only» woman filmmaker.” Faye is atypical of most African women filmmakers working in the 1980s and 1990s, that I have read about. In some respects she is more similar to African male filmmakers in exile such as Haile Gerima and Med Hondo. Faye has lived and worked in Paris throughout her career, and‘has’far

er Faye’s films are better known to some

Europeans than to most Africans, since’her films are rarely shown in” Africa. More needs to be known about Faye’s international i film net-

anale

Gender

Andrée Daventure,

and on her influence on other African filmmakers.” Is Safi Faye a role model for African women filmmakers? Safi Faye was born in Fad Jal, Senegal, a Serer village south of Dakar, in which she has made several ethnographic films. Educated in Senegal, Faye was a school teacher in Dakar in 1966 when she met * Inza Coulibaly: “Melle Kadiatou Konaté réalisatrice: L'homme ne vit pas seulement de riz et d’eau, mais aussi de cinéma.” Femme 2000 (Bamako, OO, 1994), pp.14-16. * Edson Dagba: “Mille Marguerite Ahyi la premiére ‘camerawoman’ de la télévision béninoise.” Amina 248 (1990), pp.52-54. * Cf Françoise Kaboré: “Safy [sic] Faye awarded a gold ‘Oscar’.” FESPACO News 20 Feb. 1995, p.4; Frangoise Pfaff: Twenty-five Black African Filmmakers. (Westport : Greenwood, 1988), pp. 115, 118. *° Mark A. Reid: “Interview with Andrée Daventure. Producing African cinema in Paris.” Jump Cut 36 (1991), pp.47-51.

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers

+

175 NT

JeansRouch#the foremost French ethnographic filmmaker and one of the fathers of cinéma verité, at FESTAC, the World Black and African Festival of Arts and Cultures. Subsequently she played arole in Rouch’s Petit à petit (1969) and met Damouré Zika, Ibrahima Dia and Mustapha Alassane, who also had roles in this film. With Rouch’s encouragement in the 1970s, Faye studied ethnology at the University of Paris where she first earned a diploma and subsequently a doctorate in ethnology based on research on Serer religion, and attended the Louis Lumiére Film School. In 1979-1980 she studied video production in Berlin, was a guest lecturer at the Free University of Berlin, and made two videos, 3 ans 5 mois and Man Sa Yay. Faye has received financial assistance for some of her films from the French Ministry of Culture and from television stations and cultural organizations in France and Germany. She has attended many international film festivals, not only in Europe, but also in North and South America and India. However, she has not regularly attended FESPACO, giving as an excuse her filming obligations in Europe.® Faye’s documentary films on Senegal are related to her thesis research. Although her research focused on Serer religious practice, she found that discussions spontaneously turned to economic problems, which are the subject of Kaddu Beykat, Fa an interview, Faye said:

3

.

.

.

.

2 43

In her documentary films Faye includes some fictional events. For example, she organizes the information about economic life in Kaddu Beykat around a love story and includes reenactments of the past in Fad Jal. Faye sees no contradiction in including elements of fiction

in documentary films: “I*bI'do:in ase» reality. What what Itry tofilm

4 Cf Pfaff, op. cit., p.116. ” Filippe Sawadogo: “Safi Faye l’une des premières cinéastes africaines.” Sidwaya 7 Dec. 1990, p.5.

“ Angela Martin: “African cinema.” South Jan. 1981, pp.38-39;39.

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Faye made her Serer documentaries in her own village. In Kaddu Beykat she gathered villagers and announced a topic for discussion, and then filmed the ensuing discussion with a stationary camera and without further “direction.” Kaddu Beykat reflects both Faye’s views in the questions she asks and the villagers’ views in the content of the discussions. Faye claims not to have political views, but ideas about reality,“ which also are evident in other films such as Man Sa Yay on an immigrant’s life in Germany. Fad Jal focuses on life cycle rituals, especially those of birth and death, which are part of the village’s history. Because Faye failed to get clearance for making her films in Senegal, the films could not be shown in Senegal at the time they were made.“ Faye’s first films were made in Paris. Revanche made with other students, including the Cameroonian filmmaker Daniel Kamwa, was her first experience in filmmaking.” Faye acts in her second film, La Passant, which reflects in part the solitude she felt in Paris. Some African male filmmakers also have acted in their films.* The solitude of a male student studying at a polytechnic in West Berlin is one of the main themes of Man Sa Yay. As in Kaddu Beykat, Faye includes documentary and fiction in Man Sa Yay, combining views of the man’s activities with fictionalized subjective feelings in voice-over narration. This film has both an African significance for Faye in depicting exile and a European significance for its German television sponsors in depicting problems common to guest workers in Europe. With sponsorship for her films from such organizations as French television for Ambassades nourriciéres, the United Nations for Les “ ibid.

* Frangoise Maupin: “Entretien avec Safi Faye.” Revue du cinéma 303 (1976), pp.75-80, 80.

“° Catherine Ruelle: “‘Lettre paysanne’ de Safi Faye.” Afrique-Asie 71 (1978), pp.48-49; 49.

* Sawadogo, op.cit, p.5. Nancy J. Schmidt “The influence of acting on African cinema: agendas for research.” für Afrika Studien 9/10 (1991), pp.33-47;37. Zeitschrift

6 Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers

Lg? AU

Âmes au soleil, and UNICEF for Selbé parmi tant d outro work Afr in icaMore . needs to be known about how many of her films

have been viewed in Africa and how audiences have responded to

them. Would African audiences be interested in Ambassades nourriciéres, which is about Chinese, Indian, Hungarian and other ethnic restaurants in Paris, when every survey of African audience preferences shows astrong interest in action films? Although Faye’s Serer films were made with very small budgets, since the late 1970s her films have been better financed both because of the I es-

tival awards for Kaddu Beykat and because of her relatively easier access to European sources of funding than is available to filmmakers resident in Africa. Kaddu Beykat attracted international attention through awards received at FIFEF (Festival International du Film

d'Expression Française), FESPACO, and the Berlin Film Festival, as

well as the receipt of the Georges Sadoul Prize in France and its selection as an entry at the Cannes Film Festival. However, it was not

shown in Senegal when it was first released. Research is needed on the response to Kaddu Beykat at European film festivals and FESPACO, and the specific effect of the receipt of European awards on Faye’s career. Safi Faye is an independent filmmaker; for most of her career she has not been restricted by the same infrastructural and financial constraints as most filmmakers who work in Africa. She feels that she has no more difficulties in making films than do African men.” How-

ever, Faye recognizes, that:sheshas been favored in making films be-

Faye has made over a dozen films, her reputation still rests primarily on Kaddu Beykat. Although she has not been closely affiliated with

” Cf. Pfaff, op.cit., p.118. ** Cf. Sawadogo, op.cit., p.5; Howard Schissel: “Among the peasants.” New African Aug. 1978, p.73.

NANCY J. SCHMIDT

178

filmmaking activities in Africa, research is needed on her contacts with African filmmakers, producers, actors and actresses. Mariama Hima, currently the Director of Culture in Niger, worked for twelve years as a conservator in the National Museum in Niamey.*' Like Safi Faye, Hima was trained as an ethnologist in Paris and became a filmmaker through contact with and encouragement from Jean Rouch, as well as Serge Moati. Unlike Faye, Hima makes films

+ si be Et tigééhéshséiasé

hi einen

ny

his

|

‘el

pi iconinel

: 985

and to FESPACO in 1991. Although her official responsibilities and residence in Niger may limit the number of films Hima has been able

to make, she may have more*influence on filmmaking inAfrica than does Faye. The impact of all Hima’s film-related activities in Niger and elsewhere is a subject which requires research. Although Faye combines fiction and documentary

ede

in her films,

Hima has made aseries of unscripted documentary films

on artisans such as tyre and barrelmakers in Niamey, Niger, which like Faye’s Serer films are intended as cultural documents. Hima is interested in the economy of poverty and the fertility of imagination which enables people to survive.” Hima’s early filmmaking techniques resembled Faye’s in that Hima discussed the purpose of the films with the artisans, encouraged them to behave as if she were not present, and filmed them as they worked without any further “direction.” But in-depth research is needed on Hima’s and Faye’s techniques of filmmaking. The kind of cultural record that Hima establishes differs from that filmed by Faye, since-it focuses’ on con=

World. Hima’s approach to filmmaking has won recognition through prizes at international festivals including the Festival du Réel Beaubourg in 1985, Venice Film Festival in 1986 and FESPACO in 1987. *' Cf. “Mariama Hima.” Africa International 237 (1991), p.6; Assiatou Bah Diallo: “Mariama Hima la championne du cinéma pieds nus.” Amina 225 (1989), pp.28-30; 28. * Oumdouba Ouédraogo: “Mariama économique’.” Amina 298 (1995). p.18.

Hima,

‘L'Afrique,

victime

d’un

complot

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers nm Là me mm

me

170 DV

Like Faye, but-largely-within Africa. Hima has more respect than Faye for the

quality of film personnel in Africa and feels that poverty of means Hima also

feels that Africansrare"ina position to takeControl:of theircultural ~~Niger. She has influenced women filmmakers outside Niger. For example, Rosette Yangba-Zowe of the Central African Republic acknowledges Hima’s assistance in her thesis. However, research is needed on the extent to which Mariama Hima has served as a role

model for other filmmakers in Niger, for African women filmmakers, and for filmmakers elsewhere in Africa. Lola Fani-Kayode, like Safi Faye, is an independent filmmaker, but she makes . Fani-Kayode has made more films than either Faye or Hima. Her series Mirror in the Sun alone has 39 episodes. Although Fani-Kayode has experienced her share of financial and legal problems in making films, she has been resourceful in forming a production consortium within Nigeria for making Jwa, for example, and is admired both for her perseverance and the quality of her work. Adebisi Aderounmu cited Fani-Kayode as one of the “pillars” of Nigeria’s cultural scene who has kept “ soldiering on” despite social problems, and Okoh Aihe says she has “spearheaded a revolution” in Nigerian tel evision.* Mirror in the Sun, a television drama series on contemporary ur-

°° Mathieu Mbarga-Abega: “Mariama Hima.” Bingo 415 (1987), pp.62-63:63.

# Cf. Yangba-Zowe, op.cit., p.8.

** Cf. Adebisi Aderounmu: “Pillars in the storm.” Newswatch 4 March 1991, pp.36-

37;37. Okoh Aihe: “Lola, Euzahn, Kathryn, Julia: Amazons on celluloid.” Camden (Lagos) 1 March 1991, p.14.

NANCY J. SCHMIDT

180

bli

seueaa

SHEP TOSS

‘ab

id

hood, abandoned children and materialism in ways that make people think. The script, cinematography, acting, editing and direction were all considered excellent.” Daba Obioha, another Nigerian woman filmmaker, trained at Howard University in the USA and formerly a reporter for the Nigerian magazine Happy Home, was inspired by Mirror in the Sun to make Legacy, another television series on contemporary social problems.* Mirror in the Sun received recognition outside Nigeria by winning second prize at the URTNA (Union of National Radio and Television Broadcasting Organizations of Africa) competition in Dakar in 1985, one of four Nigerian television series to receive URTNA awards in the 1980s.” Fani-Kayode’s career is only beginning. Her films have been more widely distributed in Nigeria on television, than have Faye’s in Sene-

gal. As an independent filmmaker in France, Fayesis dependent on 1S

on

co

festivals and European coproduction of he 1s, Fani-Kayode has both gained recognition in Nigeria and her films have had an impact on the Nigerian television viewing public. : Fani . | .

her work, incontrast to Faye who focuses on rural culture and the -problems of individuals in dealing with culture change. Drug abuse is the subject of Fani-Kayode’s four film television series, Mind Bending, which is based on two years of research at the Yaba Psychiatric Hospital, while The Dilemma of Father Michael is based on Idaamu Paadi Minkailu, a Yoruba novel by the well-known writer and tele°° Shaibu Adinoyi-Ojo: “A one-way mirror in the sun.” Guardian (Lagos) 28 Oct. 1984, p.B7; Ben Tomoloju: “‘Mirror in the Sun’ bows out for new documentary.” Guardian (Lagos) 11 Jan. 1986, p.10.

*’ Cf. Adinoyi-Ojoh, op.cit. °° Cf. Joni Akpederi: “Pet project on tape.” African Guardian 23 July, 1987, p.29. © Cf. N. Frank Ukadike: “Angolphone African media.” Jump Cut 36 (1991), pp.7480;78.

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers

181 0

vision producer Adebayo Faleti. Drive and Stay Alive deals with Nigeria’s auto accident rate, one of the highest in the world.” Much more needs to be known about Fani-Kayode’s filmmaking decisions, how she works with personnel involved in her films, and the personal networks in Nigeria that have enabled her to finance and direct so many television films, as well as about audience responses to her work.

Conclusion

differentthecareersofAfricanwomenfilmmakers areandthekinds_ Ima about tio theirn, careers.’ Yet they are among the women about whom the most information is available in published sources! Exten-

sive research is needed to identify and learn about women filmmakers of the subcontinent. Information about, successful and unsuccessful.

filmmakers needstobecollected, bothfortracingthe development of individual careers andforlearning aboutthespecific factors inindi-

vidual African countries which are relevant for understanding the roles of women filmmakers. Future-re needs sea to beunencu rchm-

® Adebayo Faleti: Idaamu Paadi Minkailu. (Ibadan: Onibonoje Press, 1972). *' There is more published information on Faye and Hima in European and African newspapers and on Fani-Kayode in sources on television and in Nigerian magazines than I was able to consult in preparing this essay.

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J. SCHMIDT

Appendix: Filmography This filmography represents only films and filmmakers I have read about or, in a few instances, films I have seen. To make a complete filmography, one would have to scan newspapers, popular magazines, television programs and government publications from broadcasting, communications and information ministries in every African country. There also is difficulty identifying women’s names in some cases, so I may have inadvertently omitted some filmmakers whom I could not identify as women.® ADAGALA, ESTHER (Kenya) 1984 Women in Health ADAMOU, AISSATOU (Niger) 1994 La réhabilitation des femmes handicapées ADJIKE, SANNI ASSOUMA (Togo) 1995 Femme-Moba 1995 L’Eau sacrée

ALBUQUERQUE, FATIMA (Mozambique)

[also 1985 1986 1987

listed as Maria de Fatima Silveira Albuquerque] O ABC da nova vida As nossas flores La son c’est la vie

1987 Entre a dor e esperanca

1989 No meu pais existe uma guerra

ATANGANA, ROSALIE MBELE (Cameroon) 1994 La production d’Africa Jin * An earlier version of this filmography was published in Nancy J. Schmidt “Films by Sub-Saharan African women filmmakers: a preliminary filmography.” African Literature Association Bulletin 18:4 (1992), pp.12-14. I have had to delete one filmmaker from the previous list who I have now identified as a man. Jane Lusabe is mentioned as a Kenyan filmmaker by Mbye Cham: “African women and cinema: a conversation with Anne Mungai.” Research in African Literatures 25:3 (1994), pp.93-104; 93, 98, but I have not located the titles of any films she made. Also, there is the problem of identifying women filmmakers from names when very little has been written about them. For example, is Mina Bataba of Togo a woman? I do not know from the minimal published information I have found.

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers

183 69

BADAROU, MICHÈLE (Benin) [also listed as Michéle Badarou Akan and Michelle Huquette Akan Badarou] 1985 Les Tresseuses de natte de Gbangnito 1985 Bénin le temps au féminin

BEKALE, ROSE (Gabon) [also listed as Rose Elise Mengue-Bekale] 1988 Le Tison enchanteur 1992 Santé en question BELL GAM, RUBY (Nigeria)

1984 My Child, Their Child 1985 Inyono — The Cult, with David Uru Iyam BELLE, JACQUELINE MOUSTACHE (Seychelles) 1988 Men and Birds on Cousin Island, with Ralph la Blanche de Charnoy BILOA, MARIE ROGER (Cameroon) 1989 Requium pour un président assassiné, with Didier Mauro

DIEGU, OMAH (Nigeria)® 1994 Not to My Son 1994 The Snake in My Bed Diop, 1990 1991 1992

ADRIENNE (Senegal) Le riz dans la vallée du fleuve La péche artisanale au Sénégal Le sida au Sénégal

DJEDJE, ADELE (Côte d’Ivoire) 1991 La Culture de la banane plantain de contre-saison DYyIRA, VALERIE (Côte d’Ivoire) 1990 Afrique étoiles: Kanda Bongoman, with Yossouf Djira DLAMINI, LUVUMISA (Swaziland)

% In an interview with Michael Tonfeld: “Not to My Son. First German film of Nigerian director Omah Diegu.” Uhuru (Accra) 6:11 (1994), pp.69-70, she says that she made African Woman USA. This film was attributed to Ijeoma Ioputaife by Claudia Springer, op.cit.

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1989 Prisoner’s Sport and Music 1989 Rose Craft ELIZABETH, MARIE-CLAIRE (Seychelles) 1989 Magazin ekonomik: pti metye FANI-KAYODE, LOLA (Nigeria) 1984 Mirror in the Sun 1988 The Dilemma of Father Michael 1988 Iwa 1990 Mind Bending, series of 4 films: Last Days, One Edge, Scars Within, Wake to the Night 1993 Drive and Stay Alive

Ye Fave, SAFI (Senegal) 1972 La Passante 1973 Revanche, with other students 1975 Kaddu Beykat (Lettre paysanne) 1979 Fad Jal 1979 Goob Na Nu (La récolte est finie) 1979-83 3 ans 5 mois 1980 Man Sa Yay (Moi, ta mére) 1980 Woman 1981 Les Ames au soleil 1982 Selbé parmi tant d’autres 1984 Ambassades nourricières 1988 La Toile d’araignée 1992 Mossen

FIELOU, MICHÈLE (Burkina Faso) 1988 Les Mémoires de Binduté Da, with Jacques Lombard FOLLY, ANNE LAURE (Togo)

1991 Le Gardien des forces 1992 Femmes du Niger 1993 Femmes aux yeux ouverts

FOMBÉ, MARGARET (Cameroon) also listed as Margaret Fombé Fobé 1989-Portraits de femmes — television series that includes:

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers ie ee

1989 1989 1994 1994

Les femmes pompistes Les femmes avocates Ma’a nwambeng (The Woman Who Collects Palm Nuts) Sirri Cow (The Woman Butcher)

FRESU, ANNA (Mozambique) 1984 Jogos e Brinceders

GOLDBLATT, BRENDA (South Africa) 1990 Grinding Stones GUMEDZE, LINDA (Swaziland) 1992 Point of View: The Drought in Swaziland

GWATIRINGA, AGNES (Zimbabwe) 1991 Uchadya Izvzo HEZUMURYANG, MELANIE (Burundi) 1994 Bichorai (Princes de la rue), with Philippe Pierpont HIMA, MARIAMA (Niger) 1984 Baabu Banza (Rien ne se jette) 1985 Falaw 1986 Toukou 1987 Katako (Les planches) 1994 Hadiza et Kalia

ILBOUDO, MARTINE CONDÉ (Burkina Faso) 1992 S.1.A.0. 1993 Artisanat 1993 1993 Jazz à Ouaga

1994 Féminin pluriel 1994 Un cri dans le Sahel ILOPUTAIFE, IJEOMA (Nigeria) 1984 African Woman U.S.A.

ISIAKPERE, FAITH (Nigeria) 1988 The Crossing 1991 The Children of Africa Concert KENMOE KENYOU, ROSINE (Cameroon) 1990 Tazibi, with Augustine Kamani Monkam

185

186

KINYANJUI, WANJIRU (Kenya) 1994 The Battle of the Sacred Tree

KONATE, KADIATOU (Mali) 1994 L’Enfant terrible

KOUROUMA, SUZANNE (Burkina Faso)

1994 Branmuso (Belle mére) LIKING, WEREWERE (Côte d’Ivoire)

1987 Dieu-chose (Regards de fous) MANGO, IDI RAKIA (Niger) 1988 Femmes et exode 1989 Le Langui 1990 Les Chasses touristes

MEKURIA, SALEM (Ethiopia) 1991 Sidet: Forced Exile

MELOME, MARIE-CONSTANCE A. (Benin) 1991 Pudeur de femme 1995 Un groupement pas comme les autres

MIRE, SORAYA (Somalia) 1994 Fire Eyes M’MBUGU-SCHELLING, FLORA (Tanzania)

1987 Kumekucha (From Sun Up) 1992 These Hands 1993 Shida and Matatizo MOUYEKE, CAMILLE (Congo) 1993 L’Eprouvé du feu

MUGUGU, DENISE (Burundi) 1991 Des anges en. fer MUNGAI, ANNE C. (Kenya) 1980 Nkomani Clinic 1980 The Beggar’s Husband 1981 Tomorrow’s Adult Citizens

1981 Root 1 1983 Together We Build

NANCY J. SCHMIDT

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers e e eee

1986 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994

Wekessa at Cross Roads Productive Farmlands Faith Saikati Pongezi Usilie Mtoto wa Africa (Don’t Cry Child of Africa)

NACRO, FANTA (Burkina Faso) [also listed as Regina Fanta Nacro] 1992 Un Certain matin 1994 Pouc Niini Nou, ANNE (Cameroon) 1984 Little Ones OBIOHA, DABA (Nigeria) 1987 Legacy OGAZUMA, DEBRA (Nigeria) 1989-90 Magana Jari Ce

OMABOE, GRACE (Ghana) 1995 It’s Too Late

ONWURAH, NGOZI (Nigeria/UK) 1988 Coffee Coloured Children 1990 The Body Beautiful 1991 Yetunde’s Gymhaka 1991 Who Stole the Soul? 1993 And Still I Rise 1994 Monday’s Girls 1994 Welcome to the Terrordome

ORUH, GOLD (Nigeria) 1983 Away from the Sidewalk OSOBA, FUNMI (Nigeria) 1991 The Dormant Genius OUBDA, FRANCELINE (Burkina Faso) 1992 Accès des femmes à la terre

1994 Sadjo la Sahélienne

LLU

COU 187

188

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1994 Femmes de Boussé: survivre a tout prix, with Benjamin Nama 1995 Hommage aux femmes de la Sissili S€

OUEDRAOGO, AMINATA (Burkina Faso) 1988 L’ Impasse 1991 A qui le tour 1992 Alcoolisme OWEN, CHARLOTTE (South Africa) 1993 Mayibuye Africa

PATSANZA, MIRIAM (Zimbabwe) 1985 Woman Cry 1988 Beyond Today 1992 The Return PHOBA, MONIQUE (Zaire) 1991 Revue en vrac

1993 Rentrer 1993 In situ 1993 Réves en Afrique

PINK, PATTIE (Zimbabwe) 1987 Road to Survival

PROCTOR, ELAINE (South Africa) 1984 Re tla Bona 1986 Sharpeville Spirit 1991 On the Wire 1993 Friends

SALAZAR, DENISE (Angola) 1984 Marabu

SANOGO, KADIDA (Burkina Faso) 1989 Le Joueur de kora 1992 Un Siao des femmes 1994 Une semaine au féminin

SAWADOGO, CILIA (Burkina Faso) 1993 La Femme mariée à trois hommes, with Danielle Roy 1993 Naissance

Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers a et

de

189

1994 L’ Arrét d’autobus

SELLY, MARIAM KANE (Senegal) 1990 Cars rapides 1991 Xessal 1993 Femmes rurales

SINCLAIR, INGRID (Zimbabwe) 1986 Mothers Don’t Forget 1989 Wake Up 1992 Bird from Another World

SITA-BELLA, THERESE (Cameroon) 1963 Tam-tam a Paris

SONA, VENESSA EBOTE (Cameroon) 1994 Play Skul

SPICER, EDWINA (Zimbabwe) 1986 AIDS — The Killer Disease (never released) 1987 Biko: Breaking the Silence 1993 The First Twenty Years : : ke SUTHERLAND, EFUA (Ghana) 1967 Araba the Village Story, with Leon Glickman

THOMPSON, BRIDGET (South Africa) 1989 An Unwritten Story TOURE, ASSIATOU LABA (Senegal) 1987 Profession talibé WARETA, JOSEPHINE (Kenya) 1992 Dreams of a Sweet Tomorrow, with Mudegu K. Ongusso YACOUB, ZARA MAHAMAT (Chad) 1994 Dilemme au féminin 1995 Enfants de la rue

YAKUBU, AFI (Ghana) 1988 Chorkor Smoker, with other students at the National Film and Television Institute 1994 Bondage

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Y AMEOGO, FLORENTINE (Burkina Faso) 1994 Le Jeudi de Gaoussou

1994 Sacrées chenilles (Sacred caterpillars) YANGBA ZOWE, LEONIE (Central African Republic) [also listed as Léonie Yangba Zoé] 1985 Yangba bolo 1985 Lengue 1986 N’Zale 1987 Paroles de sages

ZOULAHA, MME ABDOU (Niger) 1993 Santé pour tous en l’an 2000

EMILIE NGO-NGUIDJOL

Women in African Cinema:

An Annotated Bibliography This bibliography is designed to serve as a guide for research on topics related to women in African cinema. On beginning this project, I did extensive bibliographic research and found no single bibli À ography devoted to women in African cinema. Moreover, although in most fields today CD-ROM technology has made it easy to access literature for research, the indexes available on CD-ROM do not provide many references on this topic. Instead, the researcher has to consult a wide range of sources, including monographic bibliographies, journals, books and newspapers. The general omission of African women in works devoted to African cinema, women in general, Third World women, and women’s studies led me to conclude that either

experts in these areas are not aware of the available literature, or they do not consider issues concerning African women important enough to include in their scholarship. Since we are dealing with a visual medium, one cannot ignore the fact that women play focal réles in most African films. By African films, one should understand films directed and produced by an African about Africa in or outside Africa. Although this bibliography is by no means comprehensive, it attempts to pull together a representative selection of recent research focusing on the themes of portrayal of African women in African films, and the réle of women in African filmmaking. Of particular interest in it are works on the question of representation of women in African films. It includes books, periodical articles and periodicals published from 1970 to 1995. It is divided into such topics as: e actresses

© approaches With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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192

a Oe Se eS

awards catalogues and listings

costume designers directories distribution education festivals filmmakers filmographies

guides make-up artists reception reviews treatment of women.

Items which were avalaible for my perusal are annotated. Some items are listed under more than one section depending on their relevance to the respective sections. It is hoped that this bibliography will stimulate widespread use of the films and the scholarship that are available on, by, and about women in African cinema. It is also hoped that it will contribute to research promoting women from their marginal position to a central one in a way that is commensurate with their presence on screen.

Actresses AGEH, JUANITA (Nigeria)

Olufunwa, Bola: “African Women and Cinema.” African Woman 7 (June 1993), pp.45-47. Discusses the rôle of women in African cinema through the work of actress Juanita Ageh (Nigerian-Caribbean), director Anne Mungai (Kenyan, whose film — Saikati - won two awards at the 1993 FESPACO) and Ngozi Onwurah (Nigerian). Looks at the way these three professionals approach the issues of “women.” Comments on the stereotypical portrayal of African women in film. Mentions “Twende: African Professional Women in Cinema,” a conference organized by the Africa Centre, London, and the British film Institute.

Bibliography: Women in African Cinema ee eee

193 à

BUSIA, AKOSUA (Ghana)

Domingo, Macy/Klevor Abo: ‘Une Africaine à Hollywood/An African in Hollywood.” Ecrans d Afrique/African Screen 2:4 (1993), pp.6-11. An interview with Akosua Busia. Provides biographical information and traces her painting, acting and writing career. Also gives her views on African cinema.

Oyekunle, Segun: “The Prodigy’ of Wenchi.” Apr. 1994), p.678.

West Africa 3994 (18

Akosua Busia wins Women in International Film Award. Includes biographical information. Announces her upcoming screenplay “Seasons by Beento Blackbird.”

KEITA, CLARISSE

‘Clarisse Keita héroïne de la «Nuit Africaine».” 1991), pp.8-9, 14.

Amina 250 (Feb.

Discussion of how she started acting in film, her acting career, and preference for rôles.

MALA, AFIA

Zongo, Célestin: “Afia Mala: ‘Un Rôle dans Yelbeedo me fera beaucoup de bien’.” Sidwaya (15 Sept. 1989), pp.4. Actress and composer of some music for Ye/beedo discusses its theme and her training.

MARTA, MAYSA (Guinée-Bissau) Maiga, Cheick Kolla: “Maysa Marta (actress, Guinée-Bissau).” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 1:2 (1992), pp.36-38. Her acting réle in Les Yeux Bleus de Yonta by Flora Gomes. Review of the film.

NIKIEMA, EDITH (Burkina Faso)

‘Edith Nikiéma une jeune comédienne.” poy

Amina 232 (Aug. 1989),

Her film rôles and training.

Yéyé, Zakaria: “Hommage à Edith Nikiéma, une comédienne du cinéma Burkinabe.” Sidwaya (17 Aug. 1989), pp.6.

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Obituary includes biographical background and list of all films in which she acted.

NN. Mobioh, Dominique: ‘Stars dites-vous?” 1991), p.10.

Ivoire Dimanche (14 July

Criticism of kinds of women’s réles in African films.

Speciale, Alessandra: “La triple galére des femmes, Africaines, actrices/A Threefold Trial: African, Female and Actress.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 3:7 (1994), pp.24-29. Félicité Wouassi and Naky Sy Savané talk about the meaning of “African actor” and the difficulty for African women actors to get leading rdles for women, as heroines, as women who fight, work, raise children and make their daily contribution; réles that valorize the African woman as such, whether she is traditional or modern.

Yéyé, Zakaria: “Ai Keita le parcours d’une combattante.” Mar. 1989), pp.6.

Bingo (2

Actress discusses how she started acting, her film réles and goals for the future.

Yéyé, Zakaria: “Hommage aux femmes africaines professionnelles du cinéma: Un mérite et un défi.” Sidwaya (26 Feb. 1991), pp.6,8. FESPACO

1991, general statement about importance of women filmmakers,

producers and actresses, photographs of actresses from Mali, Niger, Chad, Benin and Cote d’ Ivoire.

SOULEY, ZALIKA (Niger)

N’daw, Aly N’Keury: ‘Zalika: Star of Niger Films/Zalika: star des films nigériens.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.28-31. Traces the acting career of Zalika Souley, including biographical information.

Approaches “La nudité dans le cinéma africain quand le nu chasse le beau.” Amina 253 (May 1991), pp.30-31. Comments by women at FESPACO 1991 on nudity in African film in the context of controversy over scenes in “Visages de Femmes”.

Bibliography:

Women in African Cinema ar eet ee

195 MAD

‘Les années folles de Habiba Msika/The Life and Times of Habiba Msika.” Ecrans d'Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.12-13. Interview with Tunisian filmmaker Selma Baccar on her film Habiba M’sika. Includes biographical background and filmography.

“Stories of Women/Une affaire des femmes.” Ecrans a’ Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.8-11. Interview with Tunisian Moufida Tlatli on her Les Silences du palais, 1994. Focuses on the feminist nature of the film. Includes biographical background.

“Women in the Place of Honour/Les femmes a l’honneur.” d’Afrique/African Screen 4:11 (1995), pp.39-40.

Ecrans

Discussion of issues raised at FESPACO 95 during the Pan-African Union of Women in the Image Industry (Upafi) seminar, “Words and Views of Women in Africa Today.”

Cham, Mbye B.: ‘Issues and Trends in African Cinema — 1989.” African Cinema Now. (Atlanta, 1989), pp.3-6. Brief comments on reconstructing history, economic and cultural history, lan-

guage, visual style, women filmmakers, films of literature, inadequate outlets for criticism, distribution problems.

Ecaré, Désiré: “Visages de Femmes’ n’est pas un film a scandale.” Fraternité Matin (7 June 1989), pp.11. A response to a May 29 1989 “Fraternité Matin” article by K.K. Man Jusu maintaining that showing nudity ina film is not scandalous, that “Visage de Femmes” is a militant, feminist film. Mentions the prizes the film has won.

See a further response in June 7 1989 “Fraternité Matin” article by K.K. Man Jusu.

Ellerson, Betty: “The female Body, Culture and Space/Le corps féminin, la culture et l’espace.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 4:11 (1995), pp.28-35. Discusses the cinematic use of the African female body and how cultural specificities of the body in African space are particularly manifested in visual representation and should be accorded more importance in African film analysis. Uses Wend Kuuni, Touki Bouki and Saraaba as examples.

Giddings, Paula: ‘Third World Activists: Two Women Committed to Change the World.” Encore American and Worldwide News (4 June 1979), pp.20-22.

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196

Pa

Hadj-Moussa, Ratiba: Le corps, l’histoire, le territoire — les rapports

de genre dans le cinéma algérien. (Montréal: Les Editions Balzac, 1994). Discusses the issue of male-female relations in Algerian cinema, particularly through five films produced between 1972 and 1982: Le Charbonnier by M. Bouamari (1972), Le Vent du Sud by S.M. Riad (1975), Omar Gatlato by M. Allouache (1976), Leila et les autres by S.A. Mazif (1978) and Vent de Sable by M. Lakhdar-Hamina (1982).

Jusu, K.K. Man: “Des précisions nécessaires.” Fraternité Matin (7 June 1989), pp.11. A reply to Désiré Ecaré’s article in the same issue of “Fraternité Matin”. Claims that Visages de Femmes is deliberately scandalous. Jusu, K.K. Man: ‘Festival de Cannes, Idrissa Ouédraogo couronné.”

Fraternité Matin (29 May 1989), pp.10. Little attention paid to African film, comments on Yam Daabo [Visages de Femmes.] See reply in June 7 1989 Fraternité Matin article by Désiré Ecaré.

Kindem, Gorham H./Martha Steele: “Women in Sembéne’s films.” Jump Cut (May 1991), pp.52-60; 36. Examines aspects of female characterization in Ousmane Sembeéne’s Emitai (1971) and Ceddo (1976). Maintains that women are agents of both group solidarity and social change in Africa’s development. Discusses the way the strong cohesive force of women in traditional African society has changed with colonialism.

Maldoror, Sarah: “On Sambizanga.” Women and the Cinema: A Critical Anthology, eds. Karyn & Gerald Peary Kay. (New York:

E.P. Dutton, 1987), pp.308-310. Petty, Sheila: “African Cinema and (Re)Education: Using Recent African Feature Films.” Jsswe 20:2 (June 1992), pp.26-37. Discusses use of African films in the classroom to develop a critical awareness of established, discipline-based methods of observing and interpreting texts. Suggests ways for achieving this goal. Also discusses the Woman’s Point of View with the example of Finzan around the question of whether male filmmakers truly articulate African women’s subjectivity or only observe

it.

Petty, Sheila: “Black African Filmmaking?” SVA Review 6:1 (1990), pp.60-64.

Bibliography: Women in African Cinema iat teen ert

197

etter

Analyzes Sarraouina in relation to view that African feminist film should synthesize feminist and Panafrican ideas in order to understand the interconnection of race, gender and class oppression.

Petty, Sheila: “Images of Women and Oppression in ‘Francophone ’ West African Film.” Canadian Journal of Communication 14.3 (1 Sept. 1989), pp.17-28. Examines the influence of colonization on the image and conditi on of women in contemporary francophone Africa through a study of the content and structure of such films as Letter from my Village (Faye, Senegal: 1979), Wend Kuuni (Kabore, Burkina Faso: 1982), The Price of Liberty (Dikongue-Pipa , Cameroon: 1978), Destiny (Coulibaly, Mali: 1976), Muna Moto (DikonguePipa, Cameroon: 1975), Yaaba (Ouédraogo, Burkina Faso: 1988), PoussePousse (Kamwa, Cameroon: 1975), The Polygamous Wazzou (Ganda, Niger: 1971), The Money Order (Sembène, Senegal: 1968). Concludes that subordi nation and oppression of women stems from the colonial and neocolonial social models that strip women of the autonomy, power and decision-mak ing they have enjoyed traditionally. Maintains that western cultural, economical and political systems are the major culprits in this shift in agency.

Petty, Sheila: La Femme dans le cinéma d’ Afrique noire. [Ph.Diss., Université Paris IV, 1988].

Petty, Sheila: ‘La représentation des femmes dans le cinéma africain.” Films d’Afrique, ed. Michel Larouche. (Montréal: Guernica, 1991.) pp.127-141. Discusses heroines in La Noire de..., Codou, Sarraounia, Liberté, Le Destin, and Emitai.

Le Prix de la

Petty, Sheila: “Women’s Societal Réles and Their Depiction in Black African Film.” Resources for Feminist Research (Canada) 17:2 (1988), pp.27-29. Pfaff,

Françoise:

‘Eroticism

and

Sub-Saharan

African

Films.”

Zeitschrift fiir Afrikastudien 9/10 (1 991), pp.5-16. Discusses how intimate scenes and female body are treated, verbal expression of sexual desire, examples of eroticism noticed by African, but not Western audiences.

Pfaff, Francoise: “Five West African Filmmakers on their Films.” Jssue: A Journal of Opinion 20:2 (June 1992), pp.31-37. On the contribution of Souleyman Cissé, Safi Faye, Gaston Kaboré, Idrissa

Ouédraogo and Ousmane Sembéne to the enrichment of the international film

world. Focuses on the sociopolitical and cultural content of West African

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films which makes them an invaluable tool for the exploration of the continent’s history, cultures and society.

Reid, Mark A.: ‘Dialogic Modes of Representing Africa(s): Womanist Film.” Tang Tai (Con Temporary Monthly) 3:1 (1992), pp.38One Report from Black American Literature Forum. 1987 Summer; 25(2).

Robin, Diana/Ira Jaffe: “Women Filmmakers and the Politics of Gender in Third Cinema.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15:1 (1994), pp.1-19. Introduction to a special issue of Frontiers devoted to women filmmakers and | third cinema.

Spass, Lieve: ‘Female Domestic Labor and Third World Politics in ‘La Noire de...” Jump Cut 27 (1982), pp.26-27. Tapsoba, Clément: “Margaret Fombe Fobe (TV filmmaker, Cameroon).” Ecrans d'Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.26-27. Margaret Fombe Fobe’s view on the importance of African filmmakers. The rôle she has played in breaking some of the stereoptypical images of women in Cameroon society. Mentions her films, Sirri Cow (The Woman Butcher), and Ma'a Nwambang (The Woman who Collects Palm Nuts) which won the

first “Images de femmes” prize awarded by Vues d'Afrique in Montréal in 1994.

Ukadike, N. Frank: ‘Reclaiming Images of Women in Films from Africa and the Black Diaspora.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15:1 (1994), pp.102-122. Discusses the alternative film practices of male and female filmmakers who seek to redefine and reclaim black/African female subjectivity from a history of filmic (mis)representation.

Vieyra, Paulin Soumanou: ‘Réflexions (Bruxelles: Editions OCIC, 1990).

d’un

cinéaste

africain.”

A collection of his articles, primarily from the 1970s. Themes include relation of film to television, education, and oral tradition, women in African film, Marxism and African film.

Williams, Amie: “Dancing with Absences: The Impossible Presence of Third World Women in Film.” Ufahamu 17:3 (1989), pp.44-56. Analyzes Emitai (1971), Naitou, and Visages de Femmes in relation to theonies of third cinema.

Bibliography: Women in African Cinema E m

199

Awards ‘Blandine Ngono Ambassa (Director. Cameroon)” Ecrans d'Afrique/ African Screen 1:1 (1992), p.33. Educational and professional background including all her television and film projects. Mentions Miseria for which she won a special mention at the 7th Journées du Cinéma Africain et Créole.

‘FESPACO 93: Awards/FESPACO 93 Palmarès.” Ecrans d ‘Afrique/ African Screen 2:3 (1993), pp.56-58. Lists awards given at FESPACO 93. Includes such names as Saikati by Anne Mungai for UNICEF and APAC Prizes, These Hands by Flora M’mbuguSchelling for City of Perugia Prize, and Gito | ‘Ingrat by Léonce N’gabo for Oumarou Ganda Prize, Maysa Marta for best actress in the rôle of Yonta in the film Les Yeux Bleus de Yonta by Flora Gomes of Guinea Bissau.

‘Les femmes lauréates du FESPACO 1993.” Amina 276 (Apr. 1993), p.18. Discussion of FESPACO 1993 awards for filmmaking and acting by Anne Mungai, Franceline Oubda, and Naky Sy Savané.

Bangre, Sambolgo: “Monique Phoba (Director, Zaire). d’Afri-que/African Screen 3:9/10 (1994), pp.32-33.

"Ecrans

Traces the professional career of Monique Phoba. Mentions her two films, “Revue en vrac” made in 1991 which won the Jury’s Special Prize at the 1991 “Vues d'Afrique” festival. Also mentions her second film, Rentrer? made in 1993.

Oyekunle, Segun: “The Prodigy’ of Wenchi.” Apr. 1994), p.678.

West Africa 3994 (18

Akosua Busia wins Women in International Film Award. Includes biographical information. Announces her upcoming screenplay “Seasons by Beento Blackbird.”

Tapsoba, Clément: ‘Margaret Fombe Fobe (TV filmmaker, Cameroon).” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.26-27. Margaret Fombe Fobe’s view on the importance of African filmmakers. The role she has played in breaking some of the stereoptypical images of women in Cameroon society. Mentions her films, Sirri Cow (The Woman Butcher), and Ma’a Nwambang (The Woman who Collects Palm Nuts) which won the first “Images de femmes” prize awarded by Vues d'Afrique in Montréal in 1994. ,

200

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Bibliographies Blacks in Film and Television: A Pan-African Bibliography of Films, Filmmakers, and Performers, ed. John Gray. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990). Lists books, dissertations, unpublished papers, and periodical articles on cinema in Africa and the African diaspora.

Pfaff, Françoise: Twenty-Five Black African Filmmakers. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988). Safi Faye and Sarah Maldoror are the two women filmmakers included. For each filmmaker, biographical background, major themes, a survey of criticism, a filmography and bibliography are included.

Schmidt, Nancy J: Sub-Saharan African Films and Filmmakers, 1987-1992: An Annotated Bibliography. (London: Zell, 1994). Updates a bibliography with the same title published in 1988. Lists books, dissertations, periodicals and periodical articles on Sub-Saharan films and

filmmakers.

Catalogues and Listings California Newsreel. Library of African Cinema. [1991 Catalogue]. (San Francisco: California Newsreel, nd [1991}). This film catalogue includes a brief introduction to African film, 6 suggestions for viewing African films in the U.S.A., background on the following films including a map and related print materials: Cheick Oumar Sissoko: Finzan, Souleymane Cissé: Yeelen, César Paes: Angano...Angano, Ngangura Mweze/Bemard Lamy: La Vie est belle, Amadou Saalum Seck: Saraaba, Thomas Mogotlane/Oliver Schmitz: Mapantsula and Gaston Kaboré: Wend Kuuni.. It also includes a number of other selected African films, and questions to ask about tradition and modernity.

California Newsreel. Library of African Cinema: Focus on African Women. San Francisco: California Newsreel, January 1995. Supplement updating the listings in the Library of African Cinema 1993-94 catalog. Looks at the condition of women in African society through background and reviews of the following films: Djibril Diop Mambety’s Hyénas (1992), Flora M’mbugu-Schelling’s These Hands (1992), Jeremy Nathan/Afravisions’ In a Time of Violence (1994), Anne-Laure Folly’s Femmes aux Yeux Ouverts (1994), and Ngozi Onwurah’s Monday’s Girls (1993).

Bibliography:

Women in African Cinema ee ee see

201

California Newsreel. Library of African Cinema: Reimagining Africa. San Francisco: California Newsreel, August 1995. Supplement updating the listings in the Library of African Cinema 1993-94 catalog. Gives a background and review of recent films including Flora M’mbugu-Schelling’s “These Hands” (1992), Anne-Laure Folly’s “Femmes

au Yeux Ouverts” (1994), and Ngozi Onwurah’s “Monday’s Girls” (1993). Also includes Flora Gomes’ “Udju Azul di Yonta” (The Blue Eyes of Yonta) (1991), which focuses on a young woman.

Costume Designers Speciale, Alessandra: ‘Oumou Sy, profession costumiére/Oumou Sy, Profession Costume Designer.” Ecrans d ‘Afrique/African Screen P22 (1992), pp: 102-105, Oumou Sy’s biographical and designing career. Interview focusing on her experience working with Hyénas (D.D. Mambety) and Samba Traoré (I. Ouedraogo) costumes. :

Directories Gaye, Amadou: “Women Filmmakers in Morocco/Femmes cinéastes du Maroc.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.1012s A historical directory/filmography of such Moroccan women filmmakers as

Farida Banlyazid, Farida Bourquia, Izza Genini, Imane Meshahi, and Touda Bouanani.

Shiri, Keith: Directory of African Film-Makers and Films. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992). Lists 259 filmmakers of whom only 8 are women, with biographical background and filmography.

Tlili, Najwa: Femmes d'images de l'Afrique francophone. (Montréal: Trait d'Union Culturel, 1994). A directory of professional African women who use French in the cinema and audio-visual sector. In addition to the presentation of women filmmakers and their filmographies, this directory contains the addresses of companies in Canada interested in North-South production and post-production. It also includes information on funding, distribution, circulation and training institutions, for the most part Canadian.

202

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Distribution Cham, Mbye B: ‘Issues and Trends in African Cinema — 1989.” African Cinema Now. (Atlanta: np, 1989), pp. 3-6. Brief comment on reconstructing economic and cultural history, language, visual style, women filmmakers, films of literature, inadequate outlets for criticism, distribution problems.

Moore, Cornelius: “African Cinema in the American Video Market.” Issue: A Journal of Opinion 20.2 (June 1992), pp.38-41. Proposes a three-pronged strategy (in universities, public libraries and Affrican-American communities) for wide distribution of African films in the United States. Mentions efforts of California Newsreel’s Library of African Cinema.

Education ‘La ‘Cousine Angèle va à l’essentiel...”.” Amina 253 (May 1991), pp.27. Opportunities for African women to obtain funding for filmmaking and use film as instrument of development. Views of Marie-Thérèse Gonçalves, Bénin.

“Regina Fanta Nacro.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 1:1 (1992), DD.33. Her educational and professional background. Her views on the training of women in film schools.

Bakari, Imruh: ‘D. Elmina Davis.” Ecrans d'Afrique/African Screen 4.11 (1994), pp.23. Describes D. Elmina Davis’ work in Ceddo Film & Video, a Black Independent cinema group of the 1980s, the Black workshop movement, and WAVES (Women’s Audio-Visual Education Scheme). Mentions her first film, “Omega Rising: Women of Rastafari,” 1988.

Landau, Julia: ‘From Zimbabwe to South Africa: Starting All Over Again/Du Zimbabwe à l’Afrique du Sud: On recommence tout.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.30-32. Miriam Patsanza talks about her video production company, Talent Consortium, which she set up in Zimbabwe in 1984. This company, which is also a school, has now moved to Johannesburg to take a more active part in “redifining the media in South Africa.”

Bibliography: Women in African Cinema mn rem

203

Moore, Cornelius: “African Cinema in the American Video Market” Issue: À Journal of Opinion 20:2 (June 1992), pp.38-41. Proposes a three-pronged strategy (in universities, public libraries and African-American communities) for wide distribution of African films in the United States. Mentions efforts of California Newsreel’s Library of African Cinema.

Petty, Sheila: “African Cinema and (Re)Education: Using Recent African Feature Films.” /ssue 20:2 (June 1992), pp.26seq. Discusses use of African films in the classroom to develop a critical awareness of established, discipline-based methods of observing and interpreting texts. Suggests ways for achieving this goal. Also discusses the “Woman’s Point of View” with the example of Finzan around the question of whether male filmmakers truly articulate African women’s subjectivity or only observe it.

Pfaff, Françoise: ‘Five West African Filmmakers on their Films.” Jssue: A Journal of Opinion 20:2 (June 1992), pp.31-37. On the contribution of Souleyman Cissé, Safi Faye, Gaston Kaboré, Idrissa

Ouédraogo and Ousmane Sembéne to the enrichment of the international film world. Focuses on the sociopolitical and cultural content of West African films which make them an invaluable tool for the exploration of the continent’s history, cultures and society.

Festivals Atelier Femmes, Cinéma, Télévision, Vidéo en Afrique: Déclarations des femmes africaines professionnelles du cinéma, de la télévision et de la vidéo, 27 Feb. 1991. Text of report from FESPACO symposium to FEPACI.

Balogun, Françoise: ‘Cinema: Scope for the Future.” 3840 (8 Apr. 1991), p.523. 1

West Africa

African women in cinematography, television and video meet in Ouagadougou to discuss issues they face in their profession. Development of a proposal for surveying and training of African women in these fields and for encouraging their participation in film festivals. Summary of their recommendations.

Beaulieu, J.,/E. Castiel/J. Larue: ‘Festival International du Jeune Cinéma/Vues d’Afrique/Silence elles tournent.” Séquences (Sept. 1991), pp.16-19.

204

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Report on the 1991 Montréal festival, with emphasis on African films and those directed by women.

Biloa, Marie Roger: ‘Femmes africaines et médias.” Les Journées du Cinéma Africain 1989. (Montréal: Vues d’Afrique, 1989), p.21. Comments on the réle of women in radio, television and journalism.

Biloa, Marie Roger: “La Citadelle’ (1989), pp.56-57.

encore.”

Jeune Afrique

1481

Discusses the women theme of “Journées du cinéma Africain 1989,” com-

menting on some of the films shown and improving the quality of African films.

Brownstein, Bill: “Vues d’Afrique Shows More than the Horror Stories We’re used to.” The Gazette (Montréal) (29 Apr. 1995), pp.F5seq. On 1995 Vues d'Afrique festival, the historical and cultural background, and film shown.

Diallo, Aissatou Bah: ‘Les femmes à la recherche d’un nouveau souffle.” Amina 253 (May 1991), pp.8-9. Report on symposium of women film professionals at FESPACO cluding all non-African women.

Diawara, Manthia: ‘Out of Ouaga.” 1995), pp.54seq.

1991, ex-

The Village Voice (19 Apr.

Hustak, Alan: “She Aims to educate Through Film; Human-Rights

Activist Is Promoter of Vues d’Afrique .” The Gazette (Montréal) (9 July 1995), p.F4. On Rose Ndayahoze’s involvement in promoting Vues d'Afrique and her human rights activism. Some biographical background.

Kaboré, Françoise: ‘FESPACO 91. Les s'organisent.” Sidwaya (5 Mar. 1991), p.6.

femmes

du

cinéma

Report on meeting of women film professionals.

Maïga, Cheick Kolla: “Entretien avec Aminata Ouédraogo sur les femmes de l’audiovisuel.” Bingo 455 (Feb. 1991), pp.12. Discusses FESPACO symposium of women film professionals.

Sackey, Catherine: “African Films and Women” May 1993), p.843.

West Africa (17

Bibliography: Women in African Cinema e SS e

205

Conference in London of 10 women prominent in film and televisi on discussed technical issues, rôles for women, concern with Western films saturat-

ing African market.

Sama, Emmanuel: “African Cinema in the Feminine: A Difficult Birthing/Cinéma Africain au féminin: Un difficile enfantement.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 1:1 (1992), pp.69-71. On the first workshop by African women professionals of the audio-visual arts which was held during the 12th FESPACO in 1991. Four main priorities were defined: compiling a directory, setting up an itinerant training workshop, training instructors, and seeking support for regular participation of women in film festivals.

Yeboah-Afari, Ajoa: “African Women form Guild.”

West Africa (20

Jan. 1992), p.129. Meeting of film and video producers in Accra, Dec. 1991, from Kenya, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana.

Zongo, Jean Bernard: ‘“FESPACO 91: Atelier sur le partenariat et sur les femmes africaines professionnelles du cinéma: La transformation du paysage audio-visuel: une nécessité vitale.” Sidwaya (26 Feb. 1991), p.6. Two FESPACO conferences opened by Gaston Kaboré.

Filmmakers ‘Anne Mungai le fleuron du cinéma kenyan.” 1989), p.16.

Amina

253 (May

Personal background on Mungai’s training as actress and filmmaker, and professional activities.

‘Blandine Ngono Ambassa (Director, Cameroon).” Ecrans d ’Afrique/

African Screen 1:1 (1992), p.33. Educational and professional background including all her television and film projects. Mentions “Miseria” for which she won a special mention at the 7th Journées du Cinéma Africain et Créole.

‘FESPACO 91 hommage aux femmes africaines professionnelles du cinéma.” Souka 29 (Apr. 1991), p.16. Summarizes meeting of women film professionals, asks when a woman will win the grand prize.

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206

‘FESPACO 91. Women Workshop. Cinema, Africa.” FEPACI News 6 (1991), pp.8-10.

Television, Video

in

Report on meeting of women film professionals, description of forthcoming projects, statement on African women in film.

‘Flora M’Mbugu-Schelling: vive la solidarité féminine.” Amina 253 (May 1991), p.22. Her training and activities as a filmmaker, producer, and distributor in Tan-

zania.

|

“Honneur aux femmes africaines de l’audiovisuel.” FEPACI Info 5 (1991)2p:2; Report on meeting of women film professionals at FESPACO 1991. Women who are directors of national radio or television: Michèle Badarou (Bénin), Danielle Boni Claverie (Côte d’Ivoire), Sokhona Dieng (Sénégal), Aminata Ouedraogo (Burkina), Mariama Hima (Niger).

‘Karité revu et corrigé par Odile Nacoulma.” Amina 253 (May 1991), p.38. Interview at FESPACO about her academic training, tenure as director of Institut cinématographique, Burkina Faso, and activities after Sankara came to office.

‘Kenyan Filmmaker Makes her Way, Camera in Hand, Baby on her Back.” Afrika 3/4 (1992), pp.31-32. Anne Mungai discusses filmmaking at AWIFAV meeting, goals of AWIFAV.

‘La ‘Cousine Angele va a l’essentiel...’.”. Amina 253 (May 1991), Died: Opportunities for African women to obtain funding for filmmaking and use film as instrument of development. Views of Marie-Thérése Gongalves, Be-

nin.

“Le parcours de Seipati Bulang Hopa.” Amina 253 (May 1991), p.20. Personal background on South African videomaker and distributor.

‘Le pari audacieux de Chantal Bagilishya.” Amina 253 (May 1991), p.11-12. Burundi journalist’s training and views on African film.

‘Les années folles de Habiba Msika/The Life and Times of Habiba

Msika.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.12-13. Interview with Tunisian filmmaker Selma Baccar on her film Habiba M’sika.

Includes biographical background and filmography.

|

Bibliography: Women in African Cinema

207 À

‘Regina Fanta Nacro.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 1:1 (1992), P35) Her educational and professional background. Her views on the training of women in film schools.

“Stories of Women/Une affaire des femmes.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.8-11. Interview with Tunisian Moufida Tlatli on her Les Silences du palais, 1994, Focuses on the feminist nature of the film. Includes biographical background.

Amarger, Michel: “Directors Give their Opinions on the State of African Cinema.” Ecrans d'Afrique/African Screen 3:9/10 (1994), pp.14-24. Includes Farida Benlyazid (/dentité de femme, 1979; Une porte sur le ciel, 1987/88) and Tunisian Moufida Tlatli (Les Silences du palais, 1994).

Atelier Femmes, Cinéma Télévision, Vidéo en Afrique: Déclarations des femmes africaines professionnelles du cinéma, de la télévision et de la vidéo, 27 Feb. 1991. Text of report from FESPACO symposium to FEPACI.

Bakari, Imruh: “D. Elmina Davis.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 4.11 (1994), p.23. Describes D. Elmina Davis’ work in Ceddo Film & video, a Black Independ-

ent cinema group of the 1980s, the Black workshop movement, and WAVES (Women’s Audio-Visual Education Scheme). Mentions her first film, “Omega Rising: Women of Rastafari,” 1988.

Balogun, Françoise: ‘Cinema: Scope for the Future” 3840 (8 Apr. 1991), p.523.

West Africa

African women in cinematography, television and video meet in Ouagadougou to discuss issues they face in their profession. Development of a proposal for surveying and training of African women in these fields and for encouraging their participation in film festivals. Summary of their recommendations.

Bangre,

Sambolgo:

‘Monique

Phoba

(Director,

Zaire)”

Ecrans

d’Afrique/African Screen 3:9/10 (1994), pp.32-33. Traces the professional career of Monique Phoba. Mentions her two films, “Revue en vrac” made in 1991 which won the Jury’s Special Prize at the 1991 “Vues d'Afrique” festival. Also mentions her second film, “Rentrer?”

made in 1993.

208

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Beaulieu, J./E. Castiel/J. Larue: ‘Festival International du Jeune Cinéma/Vues d’Afrique/Silence elles tournent.” Séquences (Sept. 1991), pp.16-19. Report on the 1991 Montréal festival, with emphasis on African films and those directed by women.

Cham, Mbye B: “African Women and Cinema: A Conversation with Anne Mungai.” Research in African Literatures 25:3 (Sept. 1994), pp.93seq. An Interview with Anne Mungai, a Kenyan film maker, at the 1992 Milan Festival of African Cinema. Mungai talks about African women and society, Saikati (1992), her first feature film which raises issues of female sexuality in urban and rural Kenya, and forced marriages. |

Cham, Mbye B: “Issues and Trends in African Cinema — 1989” African Cinema Now. (Atlanta: np, 1989). pp.3-6. Brief comments on reconstructing history, economic and cultural history, language, visual style, women filmmakers, films of literature, inadequate outlets

for criticism, distribution problems.

Chikhaoui, Tahar: “Kalthoum Bornaz (Director, Tunisia).” d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.38-39. Traces Kalthoum Bornaz’s career with biographical background.

Ecrans

Chikhaoui, Tahar: “Selma, Nejia, Moufida and the Others.”

Ecrans

d’Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.8-9. Features Tunisian women filmmakers Selma Baccar, Nejia Ben Mabrouk, and Moufida Tlatli, with their film career in the broad Tunisian film industry.

Deffontaines, Thérése Marie: “Music Above All/De la musique avant tout.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.8-15. An interview with Moroccan filmmaker Izza Genini. Discusses how her ca-

reer evolved from music to filmmaking, the creative possibilities offered by documentaries and the rôle of music in her films.

Diallo, Aissatou Bah: “Aminata Ouédraogo, coordinatrice de l’atelier des femmes.” Amina 253 (May 1991), p.12. Films she has made, comments on meeting of women FESPACO 1991.

film professionals of

Diallo, Aissatou Bah: “Cheik Doukouré.” Amina 233 (Sept. 1989), pp.36-38.

Bibliography: Women in African Cinema e a e NG

209

Problems of being African filmmaker in France, African filmma kers he admires, opportunities for women in film.

Diallo, Aissatou

Bah: “Les femmes

a la recherche

souffle.” Amina 253 (May 1991), pp.8-9.

d’un nouveau

Report on symposium of women film professionals at FESPA CO cluding all non-African women.

Diallo, Aissatou Bah: “Mariama

Hima

la championne

pieds nus.” Amina 225 (Jan. 1989), pp.28-30.

1991, ex-

du cinéma

Nigerien delegate to film festival in Mexico, her training and employment, comments on “Baabu Banza”.

Djebar, Assia: ‘Behind the Veil.” Africa News 32:11/12 (Dec. 1989), pp.6-7. Algerian writer and filmmaker Assia Djebar explores the importance of having women on both sides of the camera. Mentions her first film, “La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua” which won the International Critics’ Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1979. ,

Domingo, Macy/Klevor Abo: ‘Une Africaine à Hollywood/An African in Hollywood.” Ecrans d ‘Afrique/African Screen 2:4 (1993), pp.6-11. An interview with Akosua Busia. Provides biographical information and traces her painting, acting and writing career. Also gives her views on African cinema.

Ferrari, A: ‘Le second souffle du cinéma Africain” Téléciné

(Jan. 1973), pp.2-9.

176

Gaye, Amadou: “Women Filmmakers in Morocco/Femmes cinéastes du Maroc.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.101 À historical directory/filmography of such Moroccan women filmmakers as

Farida Banlyazid, Farida Bourquia, Izza Genini, Imane Meshahi, and Touda Bouanani.

Gibson-Hudson, Gloria J: “Through Women’s Eyes: The Films of Women in Africa and the African Diaspora.” The Western Journal of Black Studies 15:2 (June 1991), pp.79seq. Harvey, Sylvie: ‘Third World Perspectives: Focus on Sarah Maldoror.” Women and Film 1:5/6 (1974), pp.71-75, 110.

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210

Jusu,

K. K.

Man:

‘FESPACO

91.

Hommage

a la femme

et a

l’environnement.” Fraternité Matin (23 Feb. 1991), p.12. Meeting of women film professionals planned since 1989, theme of partnership, sale of films, no Ivorian film in competition.

Kaboré, Françoise: ‘Kahena, Profession: Film d'Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.67-68.

Editor.”

Ecrans

On the editing career of Tunisian Kahena Attia, who is chief editor and also producer.

Kaboré, Françoise: ‘La nouvelle génération des cinéastes: Funmi Osoba.” Ecrans d'Afrique/African Screen 1:2 (1992), pp.70. Director Osoba’s film career debuts with her documentary “The Dormant Genius” presented at FESPACO 91.

Landau, Julia: ‘From Zimbabwe to South Africa: Starting All Over Again/Du Zimbabwe à l’Afrique du Sud: On recommence tout.” Ecrans d'Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.30-32. Miriam Patsanza talks about her video production company, Talent Consortium, which she set up in Zimbabwe in 1984. This company , which 1s also a

school, has now moved to Johannesburg to take a more “redifining the media in South Africa.”

active part in

Martin, Angela: “Hondo, Med (1936-).” Women’s Companion to International Film (1990) Gives a brief biography of Med Hondo, followed by overview of his films. Also gives a brief review of “Sarraounia” (1986).

Maupin, Francoise: “Entretien avec Safi Faye.” Image et Son 303 (Feb. 1976), pp.75-80.

Olufunwa, Bola: “African Women and Cinema.” African Woman 7 (June 1993), pp.45-47. Discusses the rôle of women in African cinema through the work of actress Juanita Ageh (Nigerian-Caribbean), director Anne Mungai (Kenyan, whose film — Saikati — won two awards at the 1993 FESPACO) and Ngozi Onwurah (Nigerian). Looks at the way these three professionals approach the issues of “women.” Comments on the stereotypical portrayal of African women in film. Mentions “Twende: African Professional Women in Cinema,” a conference organized by the Africa Centre, London, and the British Film Institute.

Relich, Mario: “Chronicle of a Student.” p.2112.

West Africa 3393 (1982),

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Bibliography: Women in African Cinema r r Sama,

Emmanuel:

“African

Cinema

211

in the Feminine:

A Difficult

Birthing/Cinéma Africain au féminin: Un difficile enfantement. ” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 1:1 (1992), pp.69-71. On the first workshop by African women professionals of the audio-v isual arts which was held during the 12th FESPACO in 1991. Four main prioriti es were defined: compiling a directory, setting up an itinerant training worksh op, training instructors, and seeking support for regular participation of women in film festivals.

Sezirahiga, Jadot: ‘Kadiatou Konaté (Director, d’Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.28-29.

Mali)”

Ecrans

Traces the professional career of Malian Kadiatou Konaté who specializes in

animated folk tales. Mentions her first work, “L’ enfant terrible.”

Speciale, Alessandra: “Viola Shafik (Director, Egypt).” d’Afrique/African Screen 3:9-10 (1994), pp.32-33.

Ecrans

Biographical background of Viola Shafik tracing her film career, particularly “Le Citronnier.”

Tapsoba, Clément: “Anne Laure Folly (Director, Togo).” d’Afrique/African Screen 1:2 (1992), pp.36.

Ecrans

Professional background and review of her first film, “Le Gardien des Forces” which won the Best Feature Film at the 8th Journées du cinéma africain et créole in Montréal in April 1993.

Tapsoba, Clément: ‘Franceline Oubda (TV Director, Burkina Faso).” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.41. Traces Franceline Oubda’s career with biographical information.

Tapsoba, Clément: ‘Joyce Makwenda (Director, Zimbabwe)” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.39-40. Traces Joyce Makwenda’s career with biographical information.

Tapsoba, Clément: “Margaret Fombe Fobe (TV filmmaker, Cameroon).” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 3:8 (1994), pp.26-27. Margaret Fombe Fobe’s view on the importance of African filmmakers. The role she has played in breaking some of the stereoptypical images of women in Cameroon society. Mentions her films, Sirri Cow (The Woman Butcher), and “Ma’a Nwambang” (The Woman who Collects Palm Nuts) which won the first “Images de femmes” prize awarded by “Vues d’Afrique” in Montréal in 1994.

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Tapsoba, Clément: “Sarah Bouyain (Assitant Director, BurkinaFrance).” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screens 4:11 (1995), pp.17|

19:

Discusses her experience as assistant director, a profession with little visibility. Mentions her educational and professional background, including her work with Idrissa Ouedraogo on “Le Cri du Coeur” and “Afrique, mon Afrique. »

Yeboah-Afari, Ajoa: “African Women form Guild.” Jan. 1992), pp.129.

West Africa (20

Meeting of film and video producers in Accra, Dec. 1991, from Kenya, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana.

Yéyé, Zakaria: ‘Hommage aux femmes africaines professionnelles du

cinéma: pp.6,8.

Un mérite et un défi.”

FESPACO

1991, general statement about importance of women filmmakers,

Sidwaya

(26 Feb.

1991),

producers and actresses, photographs of actresses from Mali, Niger, Chad, Benin and Côte d’Ivoire.

Filmographies Gaye, Amadou: “Women Filmmakers in Morocco/Femmes cinéastes du Maroc.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:5/6 (1993), pp.1012, A historical directory/filmography of such Moroccan women filmmakers as Farida Banlyazid, Farida Bourquia, Izza Genini, Imane Meshahi, and Touda

Bouanani.

Pfaff, Frangoise: Twenty-Five Black African Filmmakers. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988). Safi Faye and Sarah Maldoror are the two women filmmakers included. For each filmmaker, biographical background, major themes, a survey of criticism, a filmography and bibliography are included.

Schmidt, Nancy J: ‘Films by Sub-Saharan African Women Filmmakers.” African Literature Association Bulletin 18:4 (Sept. 1992), pp.12-14. Lists 89 films by 45 filmmakers from 1972 to 1992.

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Shiri, Keith: Directory of African Film-Makers and Films. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992). Lists 259 filmmakers of whom only 8 are women, with biographical background and filmography .

Tlili, Najwa: Femmes d'images de l'Afrique francoph one. (Montréal: Trait d’Union Culturel, 1994). À directory of professional African women who use French in the cinema and audio-visual sector. In addition to the presentation of women filmmakers and their filmographies, this directory contains the addres ses of companies in Canada interested in North-South production and post-product ion. It also includes information on funding, distribution, circulation and training institutions, for the most part Canadian.

Guides Annecke, Wendy Jill/Ruth Elizabeth Tomaselli: ‘South Women’s Companion to International Film (1990).

Africa.”

Gives an overview of South African cinema, citing various films. Also discusses the portrayal of women, -especially black women, in these films. Ends with a brief discussion of women in the industry.

Boughédir, Férid. Le Cinéma Africain de À à Z (Bruxelles: OCIC, 1987). Gives an overview of African cinema through a historical, economic and thematic discussion. Analyzes four films (Borom Sarret, F.V. V.A., Muna Moto, and Finye) with brief discussion of the réle of women. Critiques the traditional patriarchal society in Muna Moto where the woman liberates herself not because she is influenced by western ideas, but because of the very social fabric in which she lives. Closes with a country by country annotated list of black African filmmakers.

The Women’s Companion to International Film, eds Annette Kuhn/ Susannah Radstone. (London: Virago Press, 1990). An encyclopedic work providing, in a feminist perspective, detailed overvie ws on concepts, genres, actresses, directors (women and men), national and regional cinemas, and studios. Includes an index of films directed, written or produced by women. Among the issues featured are:

e Martin, Angela: “Africa.” Gives an overview of African cinema before reviewing leading themes of films from different countries. The concluding section briefly discusses women in African filmmaking.

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e Srour, Heiny: “Algeria.” Gives a socio-historic overview of Algerian cinema, underlining the silence of most filmmakers on women’s Lallem made “Elle/The Women”.

issues until 1970 when Ahmed

e Srour, Heiny: “Egypt.” Gives an overview of Egyptian cinema, tracing the important rôle that women have played in the industry since 1927.

e Srour, Heiny: “Morocco.”

|

Gives an overview of Moroccan cinema focusing on women’s predicament. Such films as Hamid Benani’s “Wechma/Traces” (1970), Souheil Benbarka’s “Mille et Une Mains/One Thousand and One Hands” (1977) Farida Belyazid’s “Bab Ala Al Sama/A Door on the Sky” (1988), and

many more.

Pfaff, Francoise. Twenty-Five Black African Filmmakers. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Safi Faye and Sarah Maldoror are the two women filmmakers included. For each filmmaker, biographical background, major themes, a survey of criticism, a filmography and bibliography are included.

Make-Up Artists Maiga, Cheick Kolla: “Aminata’s ‘Beauty’/‘La Beauté’ de Aminata (Burkina Faso).” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 2:3 (1993), pp.87- 88. Aminata Zoure’s professional background including films in which she worked as make-up artist (Sarraounia, Zan Boko, Yaaba, Mamy Wata, La Nuit africaine, Les Etrangers, Rabi, Guelwaar, Samba Traore and Wendemi).

Her views on the importance of technical jobs in African cinema.

Reception Werman, Marco: “African Cinema: A Market in the U.S.?” Africa Report 34:3 (1 May 1989), pp.68seq.

:

Bibliography:

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Reviews ‘The Battle of Sacred Tree” Ecrans d ‘Afrique/African Screen 4:11 (1995), p.25.

Aragba-Akpore, Sonny: ‘Palliating the Silent Sufferers.” (24 Apr. 1993).

Guardian

Reviews “Silent Sufferers” by Ladi Ladebo, video docume ntary made for UNESCO Committee on Women.

Biloa, Marie Roger: “La tendresse d’une femme.” 1517 (1990), p.63.

Jeune Afrique

Reviews “Histoire d’Orokia”.

California Newsreel: Library of African Cinema. [1991 Catalogue]. San Francisco: California Newsreel, nd [1997]. This film catalog includes a brief introduction to African film, 6 suggestions for viewing African films in the U.S.A., background on the followin g films including a map and related print materials: ~

Cheick Oumar Sissoko: Finzan, Souleymane Cissé: Yeelen, Cesar Paes: Angano...Angano, Ngangura Mweze/Bernard Lamy: La Vie est belle, Amadou

Saalum Seck: Saraaba, Thomas Mogotlane/Oliver Schmitz: Mapanisula and Gaston Kaboré: Wend Kuuni. It also includes a list of other selected African films, and questions to ask about tradition and modernity.

California Newsreel: Library of African Cinema: Focus on African Women. San Francisco: California Newsreel, Jan. 1995. Supplement updating the listings in the Library of African Cinema 1993-94 catalog. Looks at the condition of women in African society through background and reviews of the following films: Djibril Diop Mambety: Hyénas (1992), Flora M’mbugu-Schelling: “These Hands” (1992), Jeremy Nathan/Afravision: “In a Time of Violence” (1994), Anne-Laure Folly: “Femmes aux Yeux Ouverts” (1994), and Ngozi Onwurah: “Monday’s Girls” (1993).

California Newsreel: Library of African Cinema: Reimagining Africa. San Francisco: California Newsreel, Aug. 1995. Supplement updating the listings in the Library of African Cinema 1993-94 catalog. Gives a background and review of recent films including Flora M’mbugu-Schelling: “These Hands” (1992), Anne-Laure Folly: “Femmes aux Yeux Ouverts” (1994), and Ngozi Onwurah: “Monday’s Girls” (1993). Also includes Flora Gomes: “Udju Azul di Yonta” (The Blue Eyes of Yonta), (1991) which focuses on a young woman.

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Fiombo, Angelo/Annamaria Gallone/Alessandra Speciale: “Saikati.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 1:2 (1992), p.29. Jusu, K. K. Man: Finzan de Cheick Oumar Sissoko: la revolte des

femmes p.16.

contre la tradition.” Fraternité Matin (18 June 1991),

Reviews the film.

Maïga, Cheick Kolla: “Maysa Marta (actress, Guinée-Bissau).” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 1:2 (1992), pp.36-38. Her acting rôle in Les Yeux Bleus de Yonta by Flora Gomes. Review of the film.

Tapsoba, Clément: “Anne Laure Folly (director, d’Afrique/African Screen 1:2 (1992), p.36.

Togo)”

Ecrans

Professional background and review of her first film, “Le Gardien des Forces” which won the Best Feature Film at the 8th Journées du Cinéma Africain et créole in Montréal in April 1993.

Treatment of Women “The Maghreb.” Black Film Review 6:4 (1991), pp.6seq. In the North African countries of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, cinema has been a tool of cultural liberation since independence in the early 1960s.

Bedjaoui, A: “Approche ‘féministe’ d’un cinéma masculin: le cinéma algérien.” CinemAction 43 (May 1987), pp.146-151. On the secondary position given to women in Algerian cinema, from 1959 to 1986.

Diallo, Aissatou Bah: “L’image de la femme dans le cinéma africain.” Les Journées du Cinéma Africain 1989. (Montréal: Vues d’Afrique, 1989), p.17. Reviews images of women in Mandabi, Pousse-Pousse, Sarraounia, Guérisseurs, Bac ou Mariage, Visages de Femmes, and Yeelen.

Les

Gabriel, Teshome H: “Ceddo: A Revolution Reborn Through the Efforts of Womanhood.” Framework 15-17 (1981), pp.38-39.

Gallone, Annamaria: “La Mimosa non e solo un Fiore.” 108.3 (1990), pp.58-60.

Nigrizia

Bibliography: see rissa

Women in African Cinema ee i Eei NE ntshelt 217

Discusses the condition of African women as portrayed in 13 films made by male filmmakers.

Haffner, Pierre: “La femme dans le cinéma négro-africain.” Les Journées du Cinéma Africain 1989. (Montréal: Vues d'Afrique, 1989), pp.18-19. Discusses women as theme in African films, with a brief mention of rôles in

27 films made in 1970s and 1980s. Expresses need for more women filmmakers.

Hall, Susan: “African Women 1977), pp.15-17.

on Film.” Africa Report 22:1 (Jan.

Kindem, Gorham H./Martha Steele: “Women

in Sembéne’s films.”

Jump Cut, May 1991. pp.52-60; 36. Illus., bibliogr.

Examines aspects of female characterization in Ousmane Sembéne’s Emitai (1971) and Ceddo (1976). Maintains that women are agents of both group solidarity and social change in Africa’s development. Discusses the way the strong cohesive force of women in traditional African society has changed with colonialism.

Olufunwa, Bola: “African Women and Cinema.” African Woman 7 (June 1993), pp.45-47. Discusses the rôle of women in African cinema through the work of actress Juanita Ageh (Nigerian-Caribbean), director Anne Mungai (Kenyan whose film — Saikati — won two awards at the 1993 FESPACO) and Ngozi Onwurah (Nigerian). Looks at the way these three professionals approach the issues of “women”. Comments on the stereotypical portrayal of African women in film. Mentions “Twende: African Professional Women in Cinema,” a conference organized by the Africa Centre, London, and the British Film Institute.

Pallister, Janis L: “From La Noire de... to Milk and Honey: Portraits of the Alienated African Woman.” Modern Language Studies 22:4 (1992), pp.76-87. | The two films in this study are respectively by Sembène Ousmane and Rebecca Yates/Geln Salzman.

Petillat, G./V. Danglades: ‘Créteil Soleil? L’aventure au féminin prend le pas sur le social-féministe.” Cinéma (Par) 456 (Apr. 1989), pp.2-3. (Festival report) Illus. Includes a description of films representing black women at the 1989 Créteil festival.

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Petty, Sheila:‘African Cinema and (Re)Education: Using Recent African Feature Films.” Zssue 20:2 (June 1992), pp.26-37. Discusses use of African films in the classroom to develop a critical awareness of established, discipline-based methods of observing and interpreting texts. Suggests ways for achieving this goal. Also discusses the “Woman’s Point of View” with the example of Finzan around the question of whether male filmmakers truly articulate African women’s subjectivity or only observe it.

Petty, Sheila: La Femme dans le cinéma d’Afrique noire. Diss. Paris: Université Paris IV, 1988. Pfaff, Françoise: “Eroticism and Sub-Saharan African Zeitschrift fiir Afrikastudien 9/10 (1991), pp.5-16.

Films.”

Discusses how intimate scenes and female body are treated, verbal expression of sexual desire, examples of eroticism noticed by African, but not western audiences.

Petty, Sheila: “Three Faces of Africa: Women in Xala.” Jump Cut 27 (July 1982), pp.27-31.

Sissoko, Foussenou: “Les femmes dans le cinéma africain.” Afrique Nouvelle 1885.17 (Aug. 1985), pp.21-27. Speciale, Alessandra: “La triple galére des femmes, Africaines, actrices/A Threefold Trial: African, Female and Actress.” Ecrans d’Afrique/African Screen 3:7 (1994), pp.24-29. Félicité Wouassi and Naky Sy Savané talk about the meaning of “African actor” and the difficulty for African women actors to get leading réles for women, as heroines, as women who fight, work, raise children and make their daily contribution; rdles that valorize the African woman as such, whether she is traditional or modern.

Veysset, Marie Claude: “La Noire de: Un film, deux visions.” Jeune Cinéma 34 (Nov. 1968), pp.10-11.

Warren, Ina: ‘Face of Repression.” 1910).

Edmonton Journal C11 (Apr.

Films on women shown at JCA, brief comments on Ma Fille ne sera pas excisée, Finzan, Nyamanton, and M'Biga.

OBITUARY

In memoriam

Rex Collings Rex Collings, who died on 23 June 1996, had that maverick talent

which distinguishes the exceptional publisher from the rest of us. He was a publisher of childrens’ books and books on Africa. In the African context he was above all Wole Soyinka’s publisher. He brought Wole Soyinka’s plays to a world-wide audience in the mid-sixties when at the Oxford University Press. When Rex Collings went to Methuen, Wole Soyinka went with him. When he set up Rex

Collings Ltd., Wole Soyinka went with him. For some years Rex Collings would greet the autumn announcement of the Nobel jury with groans of annoyance; then at last in 1986 Wole Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, although he continued to mutter through clenched teeth that the prize did not improve sales. Wole Soyinka would arrive in the early morning after an overnight flight and would completely preoccupy the Rex Collings office. Rex Collings started at Penguin which had made such a success, with its Pelican books of publishing cheap paperbacks of accessible

studies of serious subjects. Rex Collings was one of the earliest publishers to set out to provide paperback books for Africa on serious subjects at the time in the late fifties and early sixties, when African countries were coming to independence.- We take paperbacks for granted now, but at that time Penguin and Pan were just about the only two rivals for the British paperback market. Conventional publishers issued practically everything in cloth. British publishers such as Oxford University Press poured school textbooks into Africa; Rex was one of the first publishers to see that, with the new universities and polytechnics, there was a thirst for adult books on African subWith Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema, ed. Kenneth W. Harrow. [Matatu 19] (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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jects and that there were young writers who were pushing literature in new directions. With Michael Scott’s Africa Bureau he persuaded Oxford University Press to start a ‘Pelican’-series for Africa. He managed to cajole his colleagues into allowing him to start the Three Crowns Series; in it he published plays and poetry by deGraft, J.P. Clark, Soyinka, Easmon and others. Though he and I, after him, were not allowed to publish novels from Africa for some peculiar self-denying

ordinance of the Press which left the way clear for the African Writers Series. He ceaselessly pressed for paper-covered editions of academic studies on Africa so as to make them available at reasonable prices in Africa itself, at that time such edition were rare among British publishers. He made a deep impression ona whole generation of young publishers in whom he cultivated a serious assessment of things African. He made it possible for me to take over his list at the Oxford University Press when he went to Methuen. He was the person who persuaded me that I should apply to Heinemann to run the African Writers Series and the rest of the African publishing. There are many of our generation who benefitted from his clear vision on the importance of Africa. He pursued his publishing interest and concerns at Methuen and then in Rex Collings Ltd. In each decade there are only two or three books which make an exceptional success in spite of not conforming to the established conformities of publishing. Some thirty publishers had turned down Watership Down before him because it was ‘too long” for a childrens’ book. He backed it and risked his money by publishing it and by some canny connections, particularly with his old firm of Penguin, he confounded everybody by making it one of the surprise successes of the seventies — even if it did finish up with the Walt Disney Prize for shmaltz. This financial success initially allowed him to pursue his interests in publishing African authors. With Soyinka and his other African authors he benefitted from the extraordinary flow of oil wealth into Nigerian education. But container-loads of books did not get paid for and put his whole business in jeopardy. He managed to sell his debts

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to a Nigerian professor of business studies but found it difficult to go on working in the firm that bore his name (one year, the player s in the Nigerian tennis championships wore “Rex Collings” T-shirts). He took every chance to push African interests in Britain. The African Educational Trust raised millions to pay for African exiles to pursue higher education in Britain; sometimes the money was for doctorates, sometimes it was for the first degrees for men and women who later became ministers, civil servants or diplomats for their liberated countries. He was one of the founding trustees and was unstinting in the time he gave freely to the trust, He nursed it through the sensitive problems that do tend to strike charities. He was African adviser to the British Liberal Democrat Party, having at one time stood as a candidate for parliament. James Currey (Oxford)

Because, Don’t Forget, We Are Still Emerging Interview with Amryl Johnson (with an appendix on her publications) by Jana Gohrisch

JANA GOHRISCH: The first issue I want to raise is inspired by a poem from your latest collection, Gorgons.' The poem is entitled “No Place Jor a Woman of Vision” and describes how one of the book’s characters, Blind Woman, searches for her place in the world. Although ' Gorgons. (Coventry: Cofa Press, 1992).

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there is nobody to encourage her she keeps searching because she feels that there must be a place for her. Therefore, I would like to ask you about your understanding of place, home and belonging. What does "place" mean to you as a black woman poet born in Trinidad and now living in Britain? Which are the cultural, linguistic and literary sources of the multiple voices and visions which speak from your poems? AMRYL JOHNSON: I was born in Trinidad, a tiny island just off the coast of Venezuela which isn’t even visible on some maps. But it has never left me feeling that I do not exist. I left Trinidad to join my parents who lived in London when I was eleven years old. They later divorced. My father and my mother went back to Trinidad independently. I bought a house in Coventry about six years ago because I wanted a place of my own. I had a part-time lectureship at the University of Warwick which I combined with a writer-in-residence post at a college in Leicester. I decided to live in Coventry because I needed a base. It is important to stress that it is my house, not my home. Now, this question of place, or where do I belong. I don’t know. I know that I will go back to the Caribbean. But there is no urgency about it. I had a conversation with a couple of black female writers the other day. I know we are all feeling this restlessness. It’s got something to do with life in Britain, I think. But it is also us. This journey into your craft takes you in all sorts of directions. You never arrive because you don’t want to ‘arrive’. When you ‘arrive’ you become complacent, you become dull. Your work loses that edge. And you need that edge. Could you say something about your cultural and literary background?

Influences you mean? I don’t seem to have enough time to read as much as I would like to. And I don’t just write poetry, I write prose also. It is poetic prose. Curiously enough, when it comes to poetry I don’t think some black poets are ashamed and embarrassed anymore to admit that - because of our colonial upbringing - T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock is a poem that has influenced us be-

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cause of the musicality in it. I think, where prose is concerned I quite like Earl Lovelace, the Trinidadian writer. When I talk about a particular book which I like very much, for me it is his novel The Dragon Can't Dance. I love how he uses the layers of Trinidadian Creole, for example. And I also like Toni Morrison’s Jazz I remember someone saying to me that Toni Morrison makes it sound so easy sometimes. The more easy a novel sounds the more crafted it is, the more work has been put into it. You read these writers, and it’s so wonderful and so exciting but you know quite well that you may never be able to attain those heights. Something which I would like to ask you about is the theme of the Journey in your work, the theme of traveling which is obvious in the geographical sense of the word in Sequins for a Ragged Hem.? To me this seems to be both a serious and ironic travelogue which, nevertheless, goes beyond the conventions of the genre. But the theme is most prominent as a motif in Gorgons though more in a metaphorical sense. Could you perhaps comment on your approach to this theme which, in addition, seems to be very important to other contemporary Caribbean writers as well? It is not simply a physical journey, it is a mental journey also. It refers to growing, growing as a writer, as a poet. We often talk about the journey being exquisite. You don’t want to ‘arrive’ because you are enjoying all the experiences that you have on your way. You, as a reader, sense this idea of journeying because I am experimenting with different forms. The poem song as in ‘Far and High” from Gorgons is a new development in my work. But you see, these women in Gorgons are themselves undertaking a journey. They have started as women who aren’t sure of themselves for different reasons. And they arrive. They firid themselves at a point where they no longer need to question their identity. They know who they are. They achieve all the

things that they want to. Towards the end of the collection the women meet. Soit is afi obvious journey.

If I compare Gorgons to the work of other black and Asian writers in Britain I detect something which is rare in contemporary writing. * Sequins for a Ragged Hem. (London: Virago, 1988).

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You seem to be determined “to put the parts together again.” All these women start their journeys alone but, in the end, they come together. This is something which, to me, is of vital importance.

Yes, it is. The truth of the matter is, there are so many women who begin by being alone. And really, all they need is some other woman to say to them: “You are doing okay.” Support groups and common understanding. There should be more camaraderie instead of all the bitchiness and backbiting we still experience. I remember how in the poem “Dual Vision” from Gorgons two totally different characters come together without trying to dominate each other. |

Yes, they learn that together they can become a whole. One is ‘blind’ but she has this extraordinary vision of what can be achieved. The other is rebellious and sensual but learns to control her emotions. She recognises Blind Woman as asort of mother figure. And she could learn from her. I am turning Gorgons into a musical and I can visualise it on stage. A lot of the things which I possibly was not able to capture through language will be explained. For example, the poem “They Came In From the Margins” is actually presented in such a way that you see the women moving across a red line. They come from the margins across a red line into wide open space which is going to be creation. Because, of course, they are creating themselves. That is a vital gesture. And each woman celebrates as the others move from the other side of the margin, across that line. As far as I am concerned many women are still in transit. They arrive at this point of celebration but the celebration is just a beginning. It is the beginning of the second journey, They are moving towards a sort of universal understanding, if you wish.

What inspires you to create women who are self-confident and sure that they have a future of their own, women who go and shape it for themselves? This is something which sets you apart Jrom writers like David Dabydeen and Caryl Phillips who go back into history in order to re-write it. You seem to go in the opposite direction. Yes. Because I want them to move on. I don’t want women to go backwards because if they go backwards it means that they are still

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subjected to all the terrors they have always experienced. Wome n have to be moving forward. There is nothing more exquisite than a woman who is achieving the things she wants to. We’ve lost too many good women on the way- all the ones who had dreams . All those dreams were sucked out of them. Not simply through having children but by being told that they have no right to aim toward s higher things, to be ambitious. I wanted to celebrate womanhood. The collection is a celebration of womanhood. I don’t feel that there is anything in the collection I need to justify. Someone took me to task about the male character, Hunter. And I said he is really just a device because there has to be an obstacle in their way. And it is this obstacle which creates tension. Without tension, without conflict the collection would be flat. So that’s all he is. To me Hunter, who also appears as Driver, represents the principle of male power. But, actually, it could be perceived as a representation of any kind of power, any kind of hierarchy because this man

possesses knowledge and all the devices to use it according to his aims. Something which I enjoyed very much is your version of the ancient Greek myth of the three Gorgons with Medusa waking up at

the beginning of the collection and slowly coming to understand what she has done.

A lot of people know about the latter half of the myth. They don’t know about the earlier part of the myth whereby Medusa was human. She was an incredibly beautiful woman who slept with the god Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Athena punished her by turning her into that awful creature. I always felt that the price was too high for the crime. This is something which links my writing to the writer Marina Warner for example, because she, too, talks about rectifying harm done. And I feel that as a poet I can do that. I can re-write something. I can make it right, albeit in a very modest way. That is what we do: we alter vision. As writers, we can change things. While I was enraged about the way Medusa has been treated I was, at the same time, also envious of her powers to alter vision. Therefore, I took this idea further by waking her up in the present day. I was not only interested in bringing that vision into the 20th century

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but in being able to use it in a different way to influence other women. There is one thing which is perhaps not clear in the collection: When she realises she is still fossilising life she cries out in anguish. This cry is heard or felt by all these women in different parts of the world: Mayo hears a sound as if something is cracking in the air. Lucille remembers she was abrilliant folksinger before she became a drug-addict. For Island Woman, her world becomes a box which is almost closing in on her. Cat meets with Blind Woman. Inez’s tongue loosens, allowing her to express herself as she wants to. Dulcine gains the ability to accurately interpret her dreams. But on a separate level Medusa is also their mother. They go out to find the truth of their mother’s vision. I use this phrase in the collection. And in the same way that you can fossilise life you can also re-direct it. You can change it. You can put it back into its original form. In addition to using this ancient Greek myth you refer to another European cultural touchstone: the English Romantic tradition. The poem entitled “The Mariner of My Time” reminded me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1797). There are certain similarities between the characters - your Blind Woman and Coleridge’s Mariner. Coleridge’s Mariner is a rather passive character who acts upon a sign instead offollowing his own interests. And then he spends all his life obsessed with telling his story to every person he happens to come across. But also, don’t forget, Blind Woman speaks for herself while Cat doesn’t. Blind Woman is talkative. She is probably the most talkative of all the characters. This is one of the reasons why I wrote ‘The Mariner of My Time.” She stops anyone, anyone who’s actually reading the collection because she is just there - every single word is related by her. So she stops you in your tracks and you are obliged to listen to what she has to say. And then go and read it again because she repeats herself in different ways. So there are certain images which keep coming up time and time again and are being revised and repeated so you understand more clearly just what her plight is. She wants to emphasize just what her problems and her frustrations are.

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One can see that you move very easily within these European traditions. But I remember that a lot of writers within the New Litera tures in English are having difficulties with this kind of tradition. I think, for example, of Catherine Lim, a writer born in Malaysia who now lives in Singapore. She referred to the inhibiting power of, in particular, English Romantic poetry. She felt the need to fight it in order to find a language of her own, a language suited to transmit her experience. Therefore, like other Singaporean writers at the time, she engaged in something she ironically called “daffodil bashing.” They wanted to free themselves from all these images and metaphors as they occur in Wordsworth’s famous poem. They wanted to liberate themselves from an alien tradition which was part of their education within a colonial context. Do you share this experience? Don’t forget that throughout my schooling I was bombarded with all these myths, all these stories, all these poems. But only a few of them touch you to the extent where you feel you could take them forward. I mean, so many other excellent ones have been left behind, they are ashes. But these will remain because there is something about them which you can relate to. What struck me in Coleridge was the idea of being able to stop someone and to tell them about your plight. No one else is telling your story for you. But more importantly, there is this jealousy I felt towards Medusa’s powers. Language empowers you. This isa fact. How would you describe your position in the literary landscape of Britain? I am very much the outsider. But this appeals to me. I love it. I was originally published by Virago but there were some problems. Then this small publishing house, Cofa Press, started in Coventry. I felt I already had the reputation to accept being published there. The publisher has given me a lot of freedom, far more freedom than any

mainstream publisher would have allowed. But where prose is concerned, and that is the direction I’m moving in more and more these days, that will certainly have to be published with one of the mainstream publishers. But you left Virago, one of the biggest feminist publishing houses.

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Yes, that was my choice. I don’t regard Cofa Press as a lesser publishing house. It is small and it is exciting, and this is exactly what I needed. I love taking chances. I am not afraid to take risks. And that is how I am. And | like the position I’m in because, on the one hand, they can’t really ignore me. But on the other hand, I am on the periphery. Elusive, unavailable. I am ex-directory, a lot of people don’t

know where to find me. And this is all part of what I enjoy. I love being on the outside. I love being at a tangent to these things. It gives me a lot of pleasure and a lot of satisfaction. The book market seems to compel authors to give away personal data and information. I have noticed, however, that you are rather hesitant with regard to your biography. This is something which you seem to share with other black women writers in Britain like Grace Nichols or Joan Riley. You, for example, like Barbara Burford, never disclosed your date of birth. Why not?

There is nothing more daunting then to meet someone who has read all and everything that has been written about you. Firstly, you are left with the feeling that the person probably knows you better than you know yourself. And you know that so much of yourself which you possibly don’t necessarily want to divulge is revealed through what you say. You have to leave out just something. Anything. And if you are promoting a book you'll probably end up doing something —

like three interviews a day over a period of, say, a week. And the same question is being thrown at you again and again and again. It is very superficial and can be quite insulting. All they are trying to do is to sensationalise. I think many writers have become very weary. No matter how carefully you phrase what you say, things are taken out of context. So many pieces you read are so malicious. It becomes almost personal. But this, fortunately, has only happened to me three times

so far. In fact, sometimes you don’t even recognize your publication from the review written. Sometimes you know full well they haven’t read your publication. You recognize what’s taking place, that is, they have read all the previous reviews of your book and have simply done a mishmash of them.

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I was wondering why it is always male prose writers who feature that prominently in the media? The media is a male ‘inspired’ institution which ‘possibly still has problems taking female writers seriously. I can’t help feeling that men look after each other, far more than we do. This might even have something to do with the strong interest of contemporary literary criticism in theoretical problems. Almost all

the modern theories are based on rather experimental narrative literature, not on poetry or drama. It's disturbing, isn’t it? It’s deeply disturbing. For example, I am puzzled by all this talk about race, class and gender which has been abused so many times. But, nevertheless, it is a sort of bold underlining. If you are male, if you are white, if you are a high professional something you can be as disdainful as you choose to be. I can imagine you don't feel like going out into this kind of public anymore ...

That’s right. And there is not a single writer I respect who hasn’t said the same thing. I would like to come back to your relationship to other writers, especially black British women writers.

I keep a low profile. I do not necessarily socialise with other female writers. I don’t live in London but I know that there is this wonderful gathering of them there, and they get together, and they celebrate each other. I’m not into that. And I like it that way. However, it isolates me. Because I don’t necessarily know what’s going on. I don’t keep my ear to the ground. And so, my life style works for me in as much as it gives me what I need more than anything in the world: privacy. At the same time it works against me because it can be useful to know what’s going on. But you teach creative writing in schools, don’t you? Doesn't that help you to offset the effects of the isolation you just mentioned?

Very often a school will contact me because they may hold a book week to encourage the children to read, analyse and understand more

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deeply as well as to meet with writers. They want them to understand that not all poets are dead and that many of us are very much alive. Part of what I do with the children is to help them to understand my own process of creativity. Words are the most powerful vehicle we can ever have at our disposal. All through their lives they will be needing words. Therefore, it is not a case of arriving at the school or college and teaching them poetry. Rather, I help them to express themselves through language. My favourite exercise with them is to do with the five senses: I help them to realise that quite often we look but we don’t see. I make them realise that all the time you use similes in order to help the person you are speaking to come closer to understanding what you mean. I get them to wake up all their senses in turn, to help them to recognise how each sense works. Poetry is to do with perception. How our senses respond to a given thing. Once I thought I would give up teaching creative writing and concentrate on earning my living by my pen. It didn’t work. I missed it because I had forgotten that it is not just a case of my giving them something. I am receiving from them also. And I need this. My last question is concerned with Creole and Caribbean folk culture which you are drawing upon in Gorgons because this is something which fascinates me. There are so many different voices. One of the things which I set out to do was to enable the reader to recognize the characters by the way they use language. This comes

naturally in prose but it is not that common in poetry. In a few instances it might bealittle bit difficult to recognize the characters by their voices but I have actually paced it in such a way that every fifth poem is by the same character except obviously when Cat and Blind Woman meet. Then the two voices merge. But sometimes it seemed to me that it could be one or the other who is speaking. I thought that was meant to indicate that the project is still going on. It indicates that we witness a process, something still under way.

Each character is, in fact, an attribute. Together they make a complete person. You have Dulcine, the one who is intuitive. You have Inez who is, I suppose, the singer. Then you have Lucille, the one to do

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With dependency. She’s a drug addict. You have Cat who is sensual and rebellious. You have Blind Woman who is verbose. They are going to become one person instead of remaining fragmented. Therefore, the voices merge. And that is when it becomes difficult to tell which one is speaking. As they start to move closer to each other, their voices fuse.

This multiplicity of voices was actually a very interesting challenge which I took up when I set out to translate into German a selection of poems from Gorgons for a reading in Berlin.

What about the language barriers? Actually, you are the first one to admit that there are problems when you translate the different Creoles into German. And it is not only the language itself. In England, I often speak to groups about the experience which doesn’t translate because there are certain things in Caribbean culture which wouldn’t happen in British culture. Think of the poem ‘Granny in the Market Place” in my collection Tread Carefully in Paradise. You wouldn’t find alittle old English lady walking into a fishmonger’s, holding a

bit of cod to her nose, and insulting the fishmonger about the freshness of his fish.

As I said, it was quite a challenge. Of course, I could not always exactly reproduce the tone, the rhythm, the connotations of Creole in German. I decided on a kind of colloquial German. It is not a regional dialect but comes close to varieties of German which are definitely not “high culture.” I tried to retain the earthy, natural and powerful aspects of Creole. Are you Satisfied with the results?

In a way. Though I would like to continue working on the poems. For example, I did not manage to create a colloquial German version of the poem “Fire.” The reason being that this kind of German needs longer phrases, almost sentences to function while “Fire” only has very short lines which sometimes only consist of one Creole word. This is where the fact that Creole is a language in its own right and not a “minor or crude version of English” makes itself felt. I could imagine that this is one of the reasons why writers like Samuel Selvon are not translated into German. In The Lonely Londoners, for

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example, he tells the story from an immigrant’s point-of-view using Creole as the language of both characters and narrator. Whereas

writers who do not make use of Creole that extensively, like V.S. Naipaul or Caryl Phillips, have been translated. But with all these new voices from the Caribbean and elsewhere things will probably change in due course. Yes, there are a lot of us now. Though not all receive the acclaim they deserve. Among other things, this has something to do with labelling. I think, academics pride themselves on their boring little labels because it helps them to pigeon-hole or to dismiss. They have far too much power. I must admit that I have particular problems with dismissals that are based on unreflected preconceived ideas instead of on a proper analysis of the literary texts. I am particularly weary of the dismissal of realist writing because of its alleged aesthetic simplicity. People are always inclined to criticize what they don’t understand. It can do more harm than good. Because, don’t forget, we are still emerging.

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233 “>

Appendix: Publications by Amryl Johnson Poetry Shackles. (Oxford: Sable Publications, 1983)

Long Road to Nowhere. (London: Virago, 1985) Tread Carefully in Paradise. (Coventry: Cofa Press, 1991) [combines Shackles and Long Road to Nowhere]

Gorgons. (Coventry: Cofa Press, 1992)

Travel Writing: Sequins for a Ragged Hem. (London: Virago, 1988)

Audio-Cassette: Blood & Wine (Coventry: Cofa Press, 1991) [Amryl Johnson reading from her poetry and prose]

Anthologies:

a

News for Babylon: The Chatto Book of Westindian-British Poetry, ed. James Berry. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1984) Watchers and Seekers: Creative Writing by Black Women in Britain, eds. Rhonda Cobham/Merle Collins. (London: The Women’s Press, 1987) Let It Be Told: Essays by Black Women Writers in Britain, ed. Lauretta Ngcobo. (London: Pluto Press, 1987)

Creation Fire: A CAFRA Anthology of Caribbean Women’s Poetry, ed. Ramabai Espinet. ( Toronto: Sister Vision Press, 1990)

REVIEWS

Nadine

Gordimer:

Writing and Being.

[The Charles

Eliot

Norton Lectures, 1994.] (Cambridge, Mass.; London: vard University Press, 1995). 145 pages. US$ 18.95. ISBN 0-67496232-X

Har-

This volume comprises six lectures Nadine Gordimer gave at Harvard University during 1994, Since this was the year in which the South Africa’s first free and democratic elections took place, it represented the culmination of a decades-long struggle against apartheid and, thus, marked a caesura in the history of South African literature, too. Prior to the early 1990s most writers of any renown, Gordimer being one of the most prominent of them, had aligned themselves, albeit in many and various ways, with that struggle; from the 90s onward they will be stepping out in new directions, hopefully evolving hitherto unexplored ways of describing a different kind of society. Since Gordimer’s book thus appears at a time of remarkable upheaval in South African literature and society, readers will certainly ask how it reflects this period of change, whether it attempts some reassessment of the past and what it tells us of the views of South Africa’s Nobel-prize-winning author at what must, after all, also be a moment of significant transition in her own literary career. From the start, it must be said that this is a writer’s book, not a critic’s. Gordimer uses these lectures to reflect on the nature of the narrative process, asserting throughout the primacy of the writer’s imagination; she elucidates the origin of some of her own literary work in a way she has not done before; and, speaking as she was to a predominantly academic audience, she seeks to locate her own writing in relation to contemporary critical theory. Three of the lectures are devoted to writers whose work she admires — the Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, the Nigerian Chinua Achebe, and the Israeli Amos Oz - each of whose political commitment has led to persecution in some form (Mahfouz “banned ... stabbed”. Achebe ‘forced into exile,” Oz ‘regarded as a traitor’). Asserting perhaps alittle unjustifiably that their works “are not much quoted by literary scholars outside the classroom and Ph.D. theses, seldom cited as among the most important writers of our time” (45), although they presumably have not been discussed in conjunction be-

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235 mm mn ese, fore, Gordimer detects in their work a common search for truth, a common attempt to define what is meant by “home,” and a common struggle for justice. No doubt, too, she is not unmindful of what their work might have to say in a South African context. Certainly, Achebe’s depiction of a fictional, post-independence African state holds much of interest. In this review, however, I shall be focussing on the remaining three, South African-oriented lectures. The interest of the opening lecture “Adam’s Rib: Fictions and Realities,”

the most theoretical of the series, lies primarily in the author’s investigation of her own art. In what is essentially a study in the workings of the writer’s imagination, Gordimer takes up the question, often posed by the innocent reader, as to the relationship of fictional characters to their presumed models in real life. Recalling the process by which, as a young writer, she “fumbl[ed] to find out where fiction came from, and how” (3), she seeks to demonstrate the interaction between the imagination and reality which is at the core of the writer’s art. The example she chooses is that of her own novel Burger's Daughter, whose genesis she explains in the light of the personal encounter which eventually gave rise to the novel. Gordimer attributes the process of literary creation ‘to the writer’s imagination alone” (4), and is, therefore, reluctant to countenance theories which would have it other-

wise. She makes short shrift, for example, of Edward Said’s argument in Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography that the author’s own life is central to the genesis of a book, and she proves equally sceptical of Roland Barthes’ “marvellous piece of entertainment” (16) S/Z, which posits the reader as the “producer of thetext,” since this theory, too, would undermine

the “creative authority of the writer.” For her, the truth lies “somewhere between the two extremes’: as she puts it: “fiction... [is] an enactment of life, character ...[is] its imaginatively embodied discourse” (18). Two of the other lectures in the series — “Hanging on a Sunrise: Testimony and Imagination in Revolutionary Writings” and ‘That Other World that was the World” -provide interesting documentation of the way changes in South African society have caused Gordimer-and, of course, other writers too, to revise their opinions on some aspects of literature. Thus, in the first of these, Gordimer begins by reporting on her attendance at the recent launchings of two books by revolutionary activists (Ronnie Kasrils’s “Armed and Dangerous”: My Underground Struggle against Apartheid and Carl Niehaus’s Fighting for Hope) — both of these occasions neither she nor anyone else had expected ever to experience — and proceeds to explain how these two books led her to reconsider the distinction between testimony and imaginative writing she had made in her own earlier, pioneering study of black writing, The Black Interpreters (1973). Concerned to maintain literary

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standards, she had, in that work, shown herself reluctant to accept “mere

disguised testimony as imaginative literature.” (23) Now, however, she finds that the testimony before us is of a rather different kind. Kasrils and Niehaus, writing without literary pretension, are witnessing to “What we never knew” (23), by which Gordimer means that, in writing on the underground struggle against apartheid, they are reporting on an aspect of the South African experience about which nothing had ever been, nor ever could have been, legally published hitherto. Gordimer, thus, sees the value of their testimony in their confronting the reader with the moral decisions they had had to make in order to defeat the system and, thereby, with the need to to reexamine his or her own moral position, own contribution to that struggle. “That Other World that was the World”is in some ways the most intriguing of the lectures, for Gordimer, who otherwise resists the notion of writing autobiography, here offers a chapter of personal history, viewing her own experience against the backcloth of the recent history of her country. In effect she sets out to define her own place in the course of events. She has been “fortunate,” she writes rather surprisingly, in that she was “born into the decadence of the colonial period” (126). What she means is that she has thus been able to witness what she terms the “unravelling” of colonialism, the “passing of colonization into history” (126). Her account of her experience of this process is archetypally postcolonial. Brought up at the margins of Empire, in this case a small South African mining town, educated through English literature to admire the metropolitan centres of culture, she develops only the most tenuous of links with her own environment. Indeed, as a young person, she is taught to regard the black world which surrounds her as a potential threat, to be avoided as far as possible. It is only when she moves to Johannesburg in search of what she terms (in a phrase from Calvino) “that other world that was the world — European ideas, mores” (127), that she comes closer, not to Europe, but to Africa. This she attributes in part to her early literary endeavours, for it was in seeking to describe the world about her that she first began to understand its African dimension. Gordimer explores her ideological development in terms of a paradox. As a young writer she came increasingly to identify with South Africa as her country (especially after its break with Britain and the Commonwalth), but found herself completely unable to identify with its people, since she dismissed the whites as racist and had no experience of blacks. She describes frankly the process by which over time she came to align herself with the black struggle (“a personal revolution,” 130), stressing the importance of ‘the writer’s explorations” in discovering ‘the human dynamism of the place I was born to” (130), and defining the importance of her literary work in her

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237 en bn EE personal development: “It was with my stories and novels, my offering of what I was learning about the life within me and around me, that I entered the commonality of my country” (132). But the paradox of her inability to speak of “my people” remained with her. Only when the injustices of apartheid legislation were finally ended with the elections of April 1994, was it resolved. Her comment on the process provides a remarkable conclusion to a book which is full of insight: What this means to our millions is something beyond price or reckoning that we know we shall have to work to put into practice, just as we worked for liberation. We know we have to perform what Flaubert called “the mos’. difficult and least glamorous of all tasks: transition.” This is the reality of freedom. This is the great matter. I am a small matter; but for myself there is something immediate, extraordinary, of strong personal meaning. That other world that was the world is no longer the world. My country is the world, whole, a synthesis. I am no longer a colonial. I may now speak of “my people.” (134).

Geoffrey V. Davis (Aachen)

African Literature Today 20: New Trends and Generations in African Literature, eds. Eldred Durosimi Jones and Marjorie Jones. (London: James Currey; Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1996). vi + 186pp, incl. index. £ 9.95 ISBN 0-85255-520-2. The volume contains an introduction and thirteen studies of individual works and authors as well as of themes ina national literature. The issue’s subtitle promises new trends and generations of writers, but the selection is fairly conservative: only one piece considers Francophone writing, the remainder cover English-language writing, thus ignoring the contributions of writing in Arabic and indigenous languages. One article —- on Ken Saro-Wiwa — does consider “Rotten” and Pidgin English. Of the nations covered, Nigeria is the subject of five articles, emphasizing that country’s continuing dominance in English-language writing, two essays deal withr Zimbabwean literature, one reviews South African theatre, and the remaining three are on Cliff Lubwa p’Chong, Syl Cheney-Coker, and Kojo Laing respectively. All but three of the volume’s contributors are based at African universities. A cursory review of the Index reveals a predilection for African critical voices and leftleaning textual analyses that focus on the writers’ commitment. Contemporary theory is largely absent: terms associated with Postcolonial Studies, for example, are outnumbered by citations on imagery: “postcolonial” (four),

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“decolonization” (one), “hibridity” [sic] (one); “imagery” (sixteen). A New Critical textual emphasis predominates. This focus may concern some readers, but the emphasis on text and language, aligned to a cultural politics that places literature at the centre. of resistance is commendable, heeding as it does Edward Said’s advice: The intellectual’s representations ... are always tied to and ought to remain an organic part of an ongoing experience in society: of the poor, the disadvantaged, the voiceless, the unrepresented, the powerless. These are equally concrete and ongoing; they cannot survive being transfigured into creeds, religious declarations, professional methods.'

The issue as a whole, however, does not fulfil its early promise. Eldred Jones’ brief “Editorial Article” makes a number of claims, but they are supported more by the narrow range of the selections than by the current state of African writing and criticism. The first claim is innocuous enough: “It is ... possible to distinguish in the literatures of most countries pre-independence from post-independence literature but only as trends rather than a sudden break” (1). The influx of magic realism in works like Vassanji’s The Gunny Sack is but one notable example of a break from the more realist works that preceded political “independence.” Jones rightly points out the upsurge in women’s writing since independence (1), yet only one article selected, Rosemary Moyana’s, discusses women’s writing in any detail. Jones undercuts that development, moreover, when he stresses that it “breaks out of the limited concerns of women into the wider field of national life and politics.” (2) War, the writers’ engagement, and the political nature of African literature are contounuing trends. (3) Jones remarks that the writers “are committed to the cause of the ordinary people ...” (2) Not a single article relies on any empirical research to test this ongoing claim of populist relevance, not even to the limited extent of citing sales figures in Africa. Many of the works — Zimbabwean writers, Saro-Wiwa and Osofisan excepted — are published in former or current imperial centres. What is the distribution rate, especially in light of several African countries’ balance of payment problems? Similarly, little attention is paid to the literacy rates (they are increasing in urban areas) and the attendant constrictions this places on the definition of “ordinary people.” Lilyan Kesteloot’s “Turning Point in the Francophone/African Novel: the Eighties and Nineties” has been heavily edited; perhaps this is why the thesis is found in the final paragraph:

' Edward Said: Representations of the Intellectual. (London: Vintage, 1984), p.84. * (London: Heinemann, 1989)

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No claim is made here to have exhausted the whole range of Francophone African novels. ... The concern has been only to highlight the principal trends that are evident in the writings of recent years, and their relation to the political and social evolution of Africa. (11)

The article more closely approximates a reader’s guide to the Francophone African novel, using a schematic division into overlapping categories: the African Absurd, the Novel of Manners, and the Regional Novel. Of these three, the first is and offers something new, a break with the past. The stylistic focus Kesteloot perceives suggests an African postmodernist relativism, as the novelists “have become very reserved, indeed silent, on political theories, be they left- or right-wing. Ethics are derided whether traditional or rationalist, the human race is no longer innocent ...” (7). While it is important to remind readers of the other schools of writing, that can be done expeditiously, thus leaving more space to explore ‘the anguished questioning” (6). The main thrust in Kesteloot’s view of Francophone African writing, differs markedly from the postcolonial concerns with political independence and commitment to change that are at the forefront of Anglophone African

writing. A final weakness in the article, whether the editors’ or Kesteloot’s,

is the lack of reference to Richard Bjornson’s The African Quest for Freedom and Identity: Cameroonian Writing and the National Experience,’ an exemplary study of Francophone writing. Where the first contribution reveals a mis-orientation, Firinne Ni Chré-

achain’s “History and Radical Aesthetics: A Study of Festus Iyayi’s Heroes” is a fluidly written and argued essay that demonstrates the ongoing usefulness of close-readings bound by historical context. Chréachain argues that Iyayi’s novel differs from most fictional “reworkings” of the Biafran war, in that Iyayi is non-Igbo, the work is not a personal reminiscence, and the author’s goal is “to expose the workings of certain forces in Nigerian society, forces which he considers as prevalent today as they were twenty years ago.” (14) Chréachain focuses on Iyayi’s use of “dominant” history and its undercutting through fictive reworking. Iyayi’s project is similar in scope to Elechi Amadi’s Estrangement* though Amadi ends conservatively, tied as he is to the ‘facts’ of written history. This is disappointing because of the promise the first two-thirds of Amadi’s novel shows: a strong, independent, and intelligent female presence (Alekiri), joined to an understanding Amadi shares with Iyayi. Osime (in Heroes) realizes that ‘the war has less to do with the problems of tribalism and the need to promote national unity ... than with the political ambitions of rival factions within the ruling class”

> (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). “ (London: Heinemann, 1986).

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(15). Olaitan (in Estrangement) comments: “We go on grabbing for more and more. The gulf between the rich and poor widens daily, and the estrangement between the two deepens” (Amadi 109). Iyayi builds on his insight, Amadi does not because he is unable to move beyond a reductive history where the Igbos were defeated. Mimicking, frequently for ironic effect, Obasanjo’s My Command, lyayi denounces the self-promotion of the Nigerian leadership. But, it is Iyayi’s rewriting of history rather than the comic and satiric juxtaposition of subaltern’s lot with that of the ruling class, where Chréachain finds the most striking art. lyayi removes General Murtala Mohammed from the fiasco of the Federal crossing of the Niger at Asaba and places General Gowon’s wedding earlier (21-4): because he “knows that Gowon’s wedding is capable of striking the memories of Nigerians of his own generation, of reawakening old resentments against the ruling class and upper echelons of the military” (24). And because “Murtala has to be removed from the Asaba scene precisely because his historical role in it cannot be perceived by the reader as typical of the revolutionary leader he later became” (24). So, history is rewritten to direct attention at the past as well as the present. The only weakness is in the attribution of potential effects of reading Heroes onto “Nigerian readers” (22) because the novel is published in London. Recent estimates of literacy in Nigeria stand at 51 per cent for English. Both Chréachain’s analysis and Iyayi’s novel deserve to be read. The issue of research into readership, particularly in Nigeria, to gauge the effect of the novel remains. The single examination of women’s writing is Rosemary Moyana’s “Nervous Conditions and She No Longer Weeps.” The approach is standard, outlining how some women are led into “passively upholding patriarchy’s oppressive system” (31), and how others become “new women” (26). The essay would benefit from a comparative study with Euro-American women writers, to show how disparate woman’s lot is on a global scale. It would also benefit from a contextual grounding: not just which ‘law, custom and

authority” (25) is defied, but also which are useful to woman in her cause. It is difficult to see what is new and “revolutionary” (26) in a woman who the author places in extreme circumstances where ‘the male characters ... are so terribly male chauvinist as to be repulsive” (32). Moyana’s annoying style

also detracts from the contribution: “We did say that Nyasha and Lucia are the other rebellious women in the novel.” (29) Or, the plethora of exclamation marks which suggest Moyana’s naiveté or an over-emphasized horror: “They delight in abusing women so much that ... a word like bitch rings offensively through one’s ears!” (32, see also 30, 31, 33) Unfortunate phrasing

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doesn’t help: “They denigrate, humiliate and insult women in a manner that is unreasonable.” (32) Is such behaviour ever reasonable? The conclusion is too far-reaching: “a change in attitude [may occur] as they evaluate and reevaluate their social roles towards society and towards each other.” (34), particularly given the stereotyped male characters. To ‘Kill them!”, symboli cally or literally (as Wariinga does), hardly advances human relations. Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by General Sani Abacha’s military “government” on 10 November 1995. The publication date of this issue of African Literature Today was sometime in 1996. Thus it is unfortunate that editorial or publisher’s intervention did not occur to update N.F. Inyama’s “Ken Saro-Wiwa: Maverick Iconoclast of the Nigerian Literary Scene.” This lapse leads to Inyama’s painfully ironic conclusion (obviously written several months/years earlier) that Saro-Wiwa’s “promise — in terms of quantitative productivity and artistic maturation, and the potential for its fulfillment — is immense.” (49) The Scottish writer, William Boyd, in his introduction to Saro-Wiwa’s posthumously published book, 4 Month and a Day: a Detention Diary,’ casts his evaluation of Saro-Wiwa’s artistic activism in relation to a letter that was smuggled to him. Saro-Wiwa wrote: ‘the most important thing for me is that I’ve used my talents as a writer to enable the Ogoni people to confront their tormentors. ... I think I have the moral victory.” Boyd comments: “You have Ken.” (xv) Not future potential, not past accomplishments, but the fixed and timeless present moment. Boyd is right to remind us briefly of that, and Inyama’s article is fruitful in its (un)conscious assessment of the mixed literary heritage Saro-Wiwa leaves. Perhaps, more positively, Inyama wishes to evaluate the writing separate from the political activism, so that emotional chords are not opened and a more evaluative assessment of the craft can be made. Without question, Saro-Wiwa was an innovator: Inyama is surely right to stress the television production Basi and Company, as well as Sozaboy: a Novel in Rotten English, and Saro-Wiwa’s Saros International Publishers, which published all but his last work. Television, the electronic stage, when used well certainly would provide a large audience, where visual presentation can make clear to those who cannot understand the language of presentation. Sozaboy emphasizes artistic experimentation as much as an attempt to increase audience share: In actuality, rotten English is used by more Nigerians than any other language, including their native tongue and Pidgin English. In most places

° (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995).

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While this might pose problems for a Western readership, Nigerians who have grown up with the vernacular should not be troubled by the “slang usage [from] the early sixties ....” (Inyama 39) Linguistically Sozaboy was a success; technically, Inyama feels that the “insistent and even obtrusive authorial viewpoint tries to override these apparent contradictions” (40) in Mene, the protagonist’s naiveté and knowingness. The article continues with a discussion of Prisoners of Jebs and its sequel, as well as the two short story collections A Forest of Flowers and Adaku and Other Stories. The assessment that Saro-Wiwa was a versatile but not always prosaic writer is secured. Inyama needs to attend to his criticisms and reapply them to the article: Saro-Wiwa repeats “statements within a short space word for word” (49). Redundancy to the side, Inyama writes: “Prisoners of Jebs is somewhat episodic, and the incidents are farcical and designed to provoke loud laughter ...” (44). “In Prisoners of Jebs the satire is intended to provoke loud and contemptuous laughter ...” (45). Finally, Saro-Wiwa published his

own books, a fact that Inyama claims “is neither an indication of overriding narcissism, nor of a failure to meet other publishers’ standards of quality and competence” (36). It was a bold experiment in the creation of an autonomous publishing industry, where, for better and worse, pricing, editorial control, distribution, and so on stayed in the hands of a Nigerian. SaroWiwa’s experiment was conducted in the service of his society (Nigeria, not just Ogoni), from within that society. Eldred Jones’ “Land, War and Literature in Zimbabwe: A Sampling” investigates the state of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean writing, using four books, all of which were published in Harare: Hove’s Bones, Kanengoni’s Effortless Tears, Madanhire’s Goatsmell, and Vera’s Nehanda. These writers provide hope in the restricted sense that Jones feels they can articulate the problems of their country to postwar readers: “Their focus is mainly on the performance of those who now hold political power and on whose integrity or otherwise, depend the plight of ordinary people whose lives are the central preoccupation of these works.” (61) Concentrating on technique as well as content, Jones finds the greatest deficiency in Goatsmell. There, like Inyama’s comments on Mene in Sozaboy, Jones sees the flaw as “an overloading of the hero” (55) and a language that “Slackens the pace and seems inadequate to carry the weighty things which the novel essays” (55). Chenjerai Hove’s Bones achieves “the union of manner and matter” (55) and ° Robert Greenberg: “Pidgin vs. Rotten English in Saro-Wiwa and Soyinka.” unpublis-

hed, 1990.

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the greatest praise. In Hove, Zimbabwe has an accomplished writer who

nullifies the artistic interventions of other nationalities (e.g., Nadine Gordimer, in “A Soldier’s Embrace” and “At the Rendezvous of Victory”). “Poetry and Repression in Contemporary Nigeria: Tanure Ojaide’s Labyrinths of the Delta,” by Ode S. Ogede, relies quite heavily on other literary critical assessments. He begins with J.O.J. Nwachukwu-A gbada’s “Post War Nigeria and the Poetry of Anger”, which he assesses in his thesis: Since a general overview of the political temper of the younger Nigerian poets has been adequately provided by Nwachukwu-Agbada, my concern is with an in-depth exploration of one text ... Ojaide’s The Labyrinths of the Delta, which seems to me most representative of the two ... strands at war

with each other in this new tradition of Nigerian writing. (63-4 emphasis added)

Yet, Ogede concludes that Ojaide can “by no means be legitimately held up as being all that the new generation Nigerian writing amounts to” (72). Contradictions aside, Ogede’s comparison of Ojaide with Femi Osofisan usefully reveals the former’s weaknesses: “strident negativisms" (66). Thus Ojaide is implicitly told to “banish entirely his hubris” (67), gain a “comprehensive vision of the alternative humane society” (66), overcome the “confusions and contradictions” (70) in his poetic, temper his “deeply liberal sensibilities” (71). The overly-prescriptive nature of this article is one problem; the penchant for argument through another’s reputation is a second, and the more demeaning: “Stewart Brown, a very knowledgeable critic of Commonwealth poetry” (71); ‘J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada, scholar, critic and member of the younger generation of Nigerian writers” (63). Ogede has solid arguments to make about Ojaide’s linguistic competence; more selfconfidence asa critic will strengthen his work. J.O.J. Nwachukwu-Agbada reappears as author of the issue’s next contribution, “Lore and Other in Niyi Osundare’s Poetry.” He aims for support through a referencing of Western theoretical texts, a trend in older African literary criticism. What is bizarre, though, is a restricted list of African critics (Chinweizu et al.) to support the contention that “Before [Osundare’s]

generation, poetry in Nigeria was essentially privatist”. (73) So, preOsundare Nigerian and other African critics were at work; in Osundare’s time, a move to Europe for critical support is necessary. This is not the case. Several studies of African poetry have been published by African critics: Emmanuel Ngara’s /deology and Form in African Poetry: Implications for Communication;" Chidi Amuta’s more doctrinaire The Theory of African

* (London: James Currey, New Hampshire: Heinemann; Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya,

1990).

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Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism.? While these books also rely on Western Marxist theories of art, there is an attempt to evolve a continental poetic, albeit less comprehensive than that of their Afro-American counterparts; specifically, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s theory of signifyin’ and Houston A. Baker, Jr.’s use of Afro-American musical forms. Critical precedents to the side, Nwachukwu-Agbada then opens with unargued declarations about earlier generations, ignores recent work by those writers (e.g., Soyinka’s highly accessible and topical Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems,'°) and then cites Knickerbocker and Reninger, Lerner, Scott, Caud-

well, Wellek and Warren as support for his theory about why Osundare’s poetry is ‘infused with social consciousness” (74). Soyinka, like the Osundare that Nwachukwu-Agbada describes, is “a pioneer of his age ... who use[s] folk resources ....” (73) Soyinka and others of his generation certainly did not have “the aim of excluding the majority of its potential. audience ...” (73). The Rice Unlimited recordings of poetic forms should make that point clear. Ultimately, the contradictory movement for “authentic

indigeneity” and dated Marxism, in addition to a ponderous style, detract from what needs to be said about Osundare’s powerful poetic voice: [Osundare] achieves two things ... : he convinces us that he is a cultural nationalist, what with his employment of the oral technique which is in fact an enduring African contribution to literary stylistics; secondly, he symbolizes his declared empathy for the condition of the ordinary man in the street by returning to a thought and speech pattern to which this class may easily belong (75).

Osundare uses an oral poetic heritage and a vernacular. It is a disservice to Osundare to place his poetry in the middle of such twaddle as: It was William Bascom who had sought to distinguish between verbal art and literature by his observation that ‘verbal art is composed verbally, while literature is composed in writing and transmitted in writing’ (75).

Osundare’s later poetry is more complex, easily associated with the poet’s search for new terrain, and his socialism, which calls for a levelling UP of his wniting and his readership rather than Nwachukwu-Agbada’s apparent preference for a levelling DOWN of it: “in Moonsongs ... [he] allows his language to tilt upwards with the result that ... his linguistic medium is more complex .... Be that as it may” (85). Nwachukwu-Agbada’s contribution is sloppily thought through.

? (London: Zed Books, 1989). '° (New York: Random House, 1988).

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Ezenwa-Ohaeto is to the point in “Conscious Craft: Verbal Irony in the poetry of Jared Angira.” Moving from a review of Angira’s critics, EzenwaOhaeto adds to the critical assessment showing how ‘the use of verbal irony as a conscious device in Angira’s five collections ... highlight[s] the deficiencies in his society” (87). Angira makes the tribulations of people specific, personal, and frequently underscores “the human capacity for self-

deception” (97). Symptoms of the individual’s collaboration in societal ills are described in the poetry, but Angira goes a step further in his attempts to show a way out of the impasse. Although repetitive in phraseology and content, Muyiwa P. Awodiya’s “Form and Technique in Femi Osofisan’s Plays” is a considered and useful examination of the writer. Awodiya restricts commentary to the published plays and loosely categorizes them in three groups: realistic, experimental, and African total theatre (104). Emphasis is placed on Osofisan’s attempts to conjoin his “penchant for suitable artistic forms” and the need to relate “effectively to his audience” (103). He is successful with respect to audience as the numerous performances of his plays attest (102). Awodiya views the realist plays as a ‘transitional stage” (109), discusses the alienation effect of the experimental plays, in pre-Brechtian, Africa-originating terms (110ff), and concludes with a discussion of Osofisan’s exploitation of ‘the technical resources of traditional African theatre” (113). Like Soyinka, Osofisan uses a hierarchy of language, with particular speech types and rhythms assigned to specific classes. In spite of the linguistic variety, the language remains “simple and accessible” (115). One aspect of Osofisan’s work remains contestable: “At the end of the dialectical confrontation between characters, the

issues are resolved and the audience are integrated and rid of their passive acceptance” (117). Obviously the statement is abstract, theoretical, constructed by the critic’s reading and predilection. However, proof should be easy to assemble from letters to the editor, exit surveys, and follow-up studies. Substantive empirical research into reading/spectating and their effects on participation are required, internationally. Many of the foregoing points are also made in reference to the Ugandan playwright Cliff Lubwa p’Chong by Sam Kusule: Lubwa p’Chong’s theatre is: … very, very political. ... He is a realistic and direct dramatist who belongs to the ‘song school’. ... This form adapts and transforms idiomatic expression into English making the end product appeal to literate and semi-literate audiences alike (135).

Kusule covers Generosity Kills (1975), The Last Safari (1975), and The Madman (1989) in detail to support the foregoing overview. Kusule also

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sees Lubwa p’Chong’s use of English as a limit on his potential audience (149). Femi Ojo-Ade’s early claim in “Contemporary South African Theatre and the Complexities of Commitment” is contestable: Until recently, most references made in the West to South African theatre began and ended with Athol Fugard, a white who, his empathy for the Africans’ plight notwithstanding, cannot be expected to, as it were, enter the black skin and live the trauma and tyranny of apartheid from within. Woza Albert! and other award-winning plays penned and performed by Africans have forever changed the theatregoers’ perspective. The present critique is meant to look closely at these plays ... (120).

There are problems with phrasing and fact here, attributable to Ojo-Ade’s apparently limited sense of South Africa’s theatrical history. “Until recently” is a relative phrase: Woza Albert! was published in London in 1983 (and first performed at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg in 1981); it and the other plays in Woza Afrika! have had a significant reception in the West (including performances at small regional theatres) because of the attention Fugard drew to South African theatre. Thus, attention to Fugard’s theatre has meant attention to dramatic work by others, like Winston Ntshona and John Kani, co-authors of Statements: Three Plays.’* Woza Albert!, of course, in the Fugard, Ntshona, Kani tradition of workshop productions, was also written by three Africans, one white and two black: Barney Simon, Percy Mtwa, and Mbongeni Ngema. A fair amount of critical attention has been paid to African and South African theatre, generated by Gwynneth Henderson (B.B.C. and Heinemann theatre prize contest, of which Richard Rive was an early winner (1973)), by Cosmo Pieterse in his various collections,

and in several lengthier studies like Michael Etherton’s The Development of African Drama," particularly the discussion of the Workshop ‘71 Theatre Company. Finally, in what way(s) has Fugard’s life not been to ‘live the trauma and tyranny of apartheid from within’? Ojo-Ade has been to the committed school of literary critical pamphleteering, as the following barrage reveals: Commitment emanates from apositive but pained state of mind — suffering, sacrifice, selflessness, determination to defy misery and triumph over travails — given life through action. The Self coalesces with the Other into a macrocosmic Self that is Society. Commitment is concomitant with resistance; for, the reality necessitating commitment is an inhumanism, and there are words

" Woza Afrika!, ed. Duma Ndlovu. (New York: Braziller, 1986). '? (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1973). (London: Hutchinson, 1982).

Book Reviews galore to describe the inhumanism. Commitment is made meaningful by such plagues as racism, repression, oppression, exploitation, determination to destroy the helpless, innocent victim (121).

247 "+

Camus phrases itmore succinctly and comprehensibly: “What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.

... his ‘no’ affirms a borderline.

... He rebels because he cate-

gorically refuses to submit to conditions that he considers intolerable.”"4

Pll affirm a borderline here: e read the six plays in Woza Afrikal, e keep in mind that South Africa is a country in transition (a point that the dated nature of Ojo-Ade’s contextual remarks emphasizes), e watch the plays in performance; I can attest to their moving portrayal of life in an apartheid state and to their emotional longevity to anyone who has experienced oppression. Ojo-Ade is correct to note that the plays “lack ... adequate consideration of woman’s role ....” (134) Emest Cole’s sure-footed exposition and commentary, “The Poetry of Syl Cheney-Coker: The Blood in the Desert’s Eye’ ties Cheney-Coker’s aim “that Sierra Leone should achieve the status of the ‘New Jerusalem’” to his technique: an “exploitation of imagery and symbolism, dense images, biblical allusions, ... Greek and Roman mythologies, ... linguistic competence and precise diction ...”(151). Isolated from Sierra Leone’s politics, CheneyCoker is drawn to “figures like Agostinho Neto”, yet his poetry is never “without its glimpses of hope” (157). Cole’s analysis of Cheney-Coker leads nicely into the issue’s strongest essay, Pietro Deandrea’s ‘New Worlds, New Wholes’: Kojo Laing’s Narrative Quest for Social Renewal” While Deandrea concentrates on the “chronological development” (159) of Laing’s writing, he places the writer in context with Ben Okri and Cheney-Coker to map a break with the past in African writing, the advent of magic realism, while interrogating the slipperiness of the label itself. Kojo Laing’s achievement is the creation of “an innovative post-colonial writing grounded on the local at the same time, successfully overcoming that sterile impasse ... where ‘To one side lies parochialism; to the other, false claims of universality’” (159). This laudable goal is achieved through hybrid forms, “oral stylistic influences” (162), that cul-

minate in a new Ghana that “bears the same multicultural characteristics as the language on which it is built” (164). A “poeticized reality and supernatural presences” (165) reveal the entry of magic realism, a term that Deandrea links to Carpentier, Marquez, South American writing, and then turns into '4 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).

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“African magic/marvellous realism” (166) through an attachment to Ben Okri, an interrogation of Kole Omotoso’s use of the term, and a brief review of “African science fiction.” (circa 172) Deandrea is not particularly intrigued by literary critical labels, but they do permit him an entry into the fascinating world of Laing’s technique: This essay does not intend to underline literary standards; unlike Homi Bhabha, I do not think that ‘Magic Realism’ — or fantastic realism or African science fiction or whatever — ‘becomes the literary language of the emergent post-colonial world’ [Bhabha: 7]. Completely different kinds of fiction can be as effective and compelling as Laing’s. Nevertheless, what I hope I have managed to stress are the groundbreakingly unique characteristics of his style (176)."°

The clarity of language, the range of reference, the attention to detail, and | the enthusiasm for his subject are qualities that the new trends and generations in African criticism would be remiss to ignore. While this issue of African Literature Today has an unevenness to it, some of Eldred Jones’ selections maintain the journal’s significance to scholars of African literature.

Craig W. McLuckie (Vernon, B.C.)

Mineke Schipper: Source of All Evil: African Proverbs and Sayings on Women. (Nairobi: Phoenix Publishers, 1991.) 97 pages. Price n.a. This small book has been written by a renowned scholar of Comparative Literature who has several publications on African and Comparative Literature to her credit. The book is definitely a useful addition to the scarce references we have on proverbs with regard to gender issues. The book surveys proverbs from different African ethnic groups, which are created around the theme of feminism. The author has made a big effort to ensure that the collected data is as representative as possible by getting it from as many as forty African countries. There is an obvious suggestion that besides the mother whose countenance is positively reflected as “unique, loving reliable and hard-working,” the rest of the womenfolk is depicted as more unfaithful than virtuous” and, therefore, negative, and men are warned not to fall for their charms and evil intentions. Thus women are painted as the source of all evil in the world, which is also the title of this book. However, this strong allegation seems to The reference to Homi Bhabha is to “Introduction: Narrating the Nation.” Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha. (London: Routledge, 1990), p.7.

Book 249 4 Hos Eke Reviews _“e be mollified by the Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs (1986) when its author claims that “proverbs don’t have to be true, because they sometimes contradict each other.” How far can this claim be taken seriously? We shall come to it later. The book is divided into four major sections, namely, the introduction, proverb texts, sources and bibliography. The introduction is a theoretical background of the proverb genre, which is discussed under three subsections. The texts section has two subsections which are further divided into subdivisions. Areas which, in my view, are of interest for scrutinization are the second part of the introduction and the texts themselves because these two form the heart of the work. The introductory part deals with “Women and Proverbs in Africa.” The author begins by classifying African proverbs into two groups of “direct” and “metaphorical statements.” However, she quickly adds that it is impossible to arrive at a satisfactory classification of them, which is incidentally an echo of a couple of other paremiologists. In various cases of the collected proverbs, so far, there has been no criterion reached which could be referred to as a standard method of their classification. Even the ‘father of paremiology,’ Archer Taylor, admitted the futility of attempting at a successful definition or classification of the proverb genre. Within this second part of the introduction, the author advances a discussion on four areas: “non-verbal” proverbs, proverbial characteristics, silent and invisible (women — JSM) and. “The words of women do not fall down.” The area on non-verbal proverbs dwells on those proverbs which are symbolized by such things as sculptures on vessels or cloth, or by drumbeats or sound of horns and other artforms. Only the method of pot-lids (used in the Cabinda region) has been discussed in some detail. Notwithstanding certain advantages to the woman using this method, the author decries it because it still keeps the woman behind the curtains, denying her equal chance of expression with men in settling social problems in which she is involved. However, the author may need to know a bit more about non-verbal proverbs. She may be amazed to discover that only a few of them are meant to cater for woman-man-woman or man-woman-man communication. Many of them are man-man/society (e.g. drum-, horn-, trumpet-, flag-proverbs) and they are meant to relay only very serious social matters, although

“Seriousness” is a concept that is subject to debate. One exceptional example of woman-woman/man/society and vice-versa communication could be the “khanga” and “kawa’” proverbs of the Waswahili of East Africa. The khanga is a cloth which was introduced to the East African coast by the Indian traders at the beginning of the nineteenth century and which got indigenized as a female wear, and kawa is a food-cover which is made from dried palm leaves.

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On proverbial characteristics the author has discussed the form by which the collected proverbs are ordered, giving several examples of proverbs on women, to drive a point home. However, there two examples given which do not fit here owing to their generality. These are “A little string binds a big parcel,” the generality of which has been admitted by the author herself; and ‘Not all little seats are good to occupy.” The only deciding factor that these are women-oriented is no other than their contextual use. Contexts do change the meaning of texts considerably. Otherwise, these characteristics are applicable to the entire proverb genre, regardless of gender, theme or topic. Subsequently, the author comes up with an interesting argument in the subdivision on “Silent and Invisible” (women). She claims that proverbs “come alive only in oral communication and acquire new connotations each time they are quoted.” She goes on, that “a great deal of information is needed to analyze the full meaning and function and effect of each of the proverbs.” While it is true that proverbs get new meanings in every new context, the rest of the statements are a note too high for the proverbs, leading us to the mystification, nay, deification of proverbs. It almost sounds that the proverb is not even welcome to the Gutenberg world of letters because it will not be understood! Again, does it, indeed need a great deal of information in order to understand it? To my mind, the magic wand to understanding a given proverb is in its context. Even the question of contradiction between a proverb and another as suggested by the Penguin Dictionary of Proverbs does not arise, because each proverb has its own context; it is a quote which exists in its own right to serve a very specific purpose at a specific moment. This does not dismiss the fact that there exists in certain proverbs ‘internal opposition” which is deliberately intended. This is particularly common with dyadic proverbs. This internal contradiction is not meant to refute the truth for which that text stands. The author’s observation that proverbs which are derogatory about women are spread the world over is correct. The question can be: why do proverbs usually subordinate women and not men? The general and simple answer could be that, everywhere in the world communities, regardless of colour or race, women have been subjected to men in one way or another. What differs from one community to another is the extent to which subjection is exercised. The man has of ten played the doyen of his location and expropriated the means of existence to the extent of even having them sanctified in his person in order to create for himself an atmosphere of awesomeness and “fear of god.” In the same vein, he has tailored out the criteria for wisdom in his own image. Since proverbs and sayings are said to em-

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body wisdom, its mentor and basic user has been the man. It would not be inexact to argue that the man has often used wise sayings to his own advantage, reducing the woman to a mere object for his use. For this reason, we support Schipper that the woman was “hot visible” as a counterpart of the man, except the mother and, in very few instances, the wife. Under the very circumstances, the woman was kept at a distance from the man and, hence,

“silenced.” In the last part of the introduction, “The words of women do not fall down,” the author points out more proverbs which speak negatively about women and emphasize the reproductive function as their main objective. However, learning from the title of this subdivision, which is a reverse of the Shona proverb, “The words of men do not fall down,” one thinks that the

author intends to inject an atmosphere of revolutionary changes in the traditions which have hitherto been dominated by attitudes of male chauvinism. She feels there is need to reexamine women’s social position and rights and compare them with those of men. Already there is green light in urban areas, says the author. What about the rural? Again, the question here could be: is it that easy to raise a struggle against conservatism, especially in proverbs? To use the author’s own words, “proverbs have a lasting impact; though they may be abandoned, they cannot be falsified.” The acrobatics of substituting feminine (or gender?) words in places of male vocabulary as in the case of the title of this subdivision appears to suggest a tooth-for-tooth game which is both temporary and ineffective. There is not much to say with regard to the second section, ie. the proverb texts themselves. The anthology does not generally differ from other known collection in the sense that they lack their contexts, with the exception of a few annotated ones. The texts are divided into two main parts (phases of life and elements of life), the first of which refers to “categories of womankind,” such as girl, woman, wife, co-wife, daughter, etc; and the second is about what can be referred to as “wo(hu)man qualities” such as, beauty, love, sex, pregnancy, sterility, unfaithfulness, power, etc. This taxonomic exercise, as hinted earlier on, cannot be said to be satisfactory because categories freely overlap and are, therefore, quite amorphous. However, the method of classifying the six hundred proverbs contained in this book has, to a big extent, served well the purpose of the author, ie. to avoid classifying women in a curious way like other scholars have done and thus commit the very mistake of giving the woman the second fiddle. All in all; the book offers an important contribution with regard to how the modern world must view some of the wisdom of the past which appear to be overtaken by time and space. At the same time, the author bears in mind the hard fact that old proverbs can be abandoned, but they cannot be

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falsified. The fist of gender may not be heavy enough to punch them out of the social arena. Thomas Brückner (Leipzig)

Manfred F. Prinz: Die kulturtragenden Institutionen Senegals. Zwischen kolonialem Erbe und Unabhängigkeit. [Sozialwissenschaftliche Studien zu internationalen Problemen / Social Science Studies on International Problems; 172]. (Saarbriicken,

Fort

Lauderdale:

Breitenbach,

1993).

232

pages. ISBN 3-88156-554-X Dès la préface l’attention du lecteur est attirée par un manque de précision notoire dans l’exposé des faits. Il est dit, par example, à propos de la problématique de la citoyenneté dans les anciennes colonies françaises d’Afrique noire: «C’est ainsi que durant les deux guerres mondiales on fit entrevoir à des mercenaires africaines la possibilité d’acquérir la citoyenneté française en guise de récompense pour leur engagement sur les théâtres européens des opérations» (9). Vu que l’obligation du service militaire était appliquée dans les colonies françaises de façon même plus stricte qu’en métropole, vouloir faire des soldats négro-africains engagés dans les deux guerres mondiales des mercenaires n’est pas simplement une contrevérité historique, mais plutôt une dépréciation volontaire ou involontaire du sacrifice fait par ces derniers pour le triomphe de l’idéal de liberté dans le monde contemporain. L’édit manque de précision traverse comme un fil conducteur cette publication qui pourtant, tant par son patronage, sa méthodologie que par sa présentation se veut ouvrage scientifique d’information et de documentation. Comme autre illustration du manque de précision il faut signaler celle concernant une organisation aussi importante pour la lutte anticoloniale que la Fédération des Etudiants d’Afrique Noire en France (F.E.A.N.F.). D’une part, on est surpris de lire dans la bibliographie, à propos du syllabaire wolof réalisé en 1959 par la dite Fédération l’intitulé «Fédération des Associations des Etudiants Sénégalais en France». Une telle organisation n’a jamais existé; en réalité, il s’agit simplement de l’Association des Sénégalais en France eñ tant que l’une des section de la F.E.A.N.F. elle-même panafñricaine. Il est, d’autre part, très aventureux pour une étude qui se veut scientifique de s’en tenir à des déclarations à caractère plutôt politicien pour étayer

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253 em cee me des faits d’histoire, au-lieu de vérifier la véracité des dites déclarations. Une telle vérification préalable eût permis à l’auteur d’apprendre que le mouvement initié à l’epoque par la F.E.A.N.F. pour la transcription des langues africaines et qui à l’Université de Grenoble aboutit à celle du wolof et à la publication de syllabaire comptait parmi les défenseurs les plus acharnés un homme qui l’est du reste encore demeuré aujourd’hui et qui n’est autre que le célèbre écrivain-dramaturge sénégalais Cheikh Aliou Ndaw. Au demeurant, il est plus qu’étonnant que dans un ouvrage qui traite de culture contemporaine du Sénégalais il n’est nulle part question, même pas dans la bibliographie finale, de Cheikh Aliou Ndaw, l’un des plus grands représentants de notre culture aussi bien sur le plan pratique que théorique, et qui de surcroît a été des années durant Conseiller Culturel du gouvernement sénégalais. Cette remarque relative au silence fait sur Cheikh Aliou Ndaw permet de toucher du doigt l’un des traits caractéristique problématiques de l’ouvrage de Manfred Prinz: on y rencontre une pléthore de noms de personnes plus ou moins importantes, alors que d’autres, absolument incontournables pour une appréhension adéquate des réalités socio-culturelles sénégalaises sont purement et simplement ignorées. Ceci n’est pas seulement le cas pour Cheikh Aliou Ndaw et son collègue également grand écrivaindramaturge et théoricien de la culture, Abdou Anta Kâ. Il en va de même, en guise d’exemples, du Professeur .Mouhamadou Kane, qui depuis de nombreuses années passe pour être l’un des critiques littéraires les mieux avertis de l’espace francophone africain et qui régulièrement préside presque tous les jurys des prix littéraires dont il est pourtant largement question dans le livre de Manfred Prinz. L’autre exemple concerne le défunt ex-Ministre de la Culture Abd El Kader Fall qui a présidé aux destinées des institutions culturelles du Sénégal de façon certainement beaucoup plus déterminante que ses successeurs qui sont cités par Manfred Prinz. On a la nette impression que certaines personnes sont mentionnées dans le présent ouvrage non point à cause de l’impact obJectif et réel qu’il ont eu ou ont encore sur la culture sénégalaise et ses institutions, mais plutôt sur la base de simples relation personnelles. Pour ce qui est du fond et du but poursuivi l’ouvrage de M. Prinz laisse tout connaisseur des faits et des problèmes culturels sénégalais perplexe. Qu’a recherché l’auteur en publiant cet ouvrage? Pour quels lecteurs l’a-t-til

publié? En un mot qu’elle est l’utilité d’un tel ouvrage? Si l’intention louable fut de réaliser à l’usage d’africainistes germanophones ou d’étudiants germanophones en études africaines une monographie sur les institutions culturelles sénégalaises, il faut constater que le résultat est loin d’avoir été atteint. La qualité d’une bonne monographie équivalant celle d’une étude complète et détaillée qui épuise un sujet précis relativement restreint, la présente étude

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pèche surtout par l’ampleur du sujet à traiter qui engendre une grande imprécision presque inévitable vu que l’auteur est obligé pour épuiser son sujet de se cantonner à des développements généraux et parfois même carrément anecdotiques ou relevant du genre de la fiction narrative littéraire. L’une des illustrations de cette approche concerne la psychopathologie africaine dont traite l’auteur en s’appuyant non pas sur des études scientifiques — qui existent! — mais plutôt sur l’oeuvre de fiction du romancier sénégalais Abdoulaye Sadji Tounka. De la même façon, la prise en compte, et cela dans un style télégraphique assez imprécis, de deux oeuvres narratives de fiction, Le docker noir d’Ousmane Sembène et L'appel des arènes d’Aminata Sow Fall, fait l’effet d’un cheveu dans la soupe au milieu d’un énoncé où il s’agit plutôt de mettre en exergue avec précision les principes directeurs de la «Charte culturelle» sénégalaise. De tout ce qui précède il ressort que l’ouvrage de Manfred Prinz ne saurait donc jouer le rôle d’une monographie scientifique à l’usage de spécialistes germanophones des études africaines. Ce faisant, le problème est de savoir si l’ouvrage peut être au moins appréhendé comme un traité de vulgarisation à l’usage du lecteur germanophone moyen s’intéressant à l’Afrique et singulièrement au Sénégal. Autrement dit: l’ouvrage peut-il être utile en tant que la somme des expériences personnelles de l’auteur au Sénégal dont il tient à faire bénéficier les germanophones de tout horizon non spécialistes et n’ayant point séjourné en Afrique mais avides d’informations sur ce continent? Il semble que le partage du capital d’expériences recueillies soit effectivement l’un des buts primordiaux poursuivis par l’auteur qui souligne à dessein dans la préface qu’il a bénéficié pendant la collecte d’informations pour rédiger son livre entre 1986 et 1989 de la disponibilité et de la coopération de beaucoup de Sénégalais. Seulement, faire profiter à d’autres de ses propres expériences suppose en de pareils cas qu’on prenne plus ou moins position de façon critique sur les données recueillies. Ce signal critique apparaît en l’occurrence d’autant plus souhaitable que seule la perspective herméneutique pourrait fonder le fait qu’un non-spécialiste comme Manfred Prinz s’attaque à un thème aussi spécifique et complexe relevant plutôt des sciences sociales. Malheureusement, il se contente, sans commentaire critique, de reproduire les opinions d’auteurs tels que Gerti Hessling (Histoire politique du Sénégal) et Jérôme Carlos (La fonction culturelle de l'information en Afrique entre autres). Et tout et pour tout, l’intérêt de cet ouvrage réside dans labibliographie que donne l’auteur qui peut et doit inciter à la lecture toute personne qui s’intéresse aux questions culturelles sénégalaises. Amadou Booker Sadji (Dakar)

Book Reviews

255

David Kerr: African Popular Theatre from Pre-colonial Times to the Present Day. [Studies in African Literature. New Series] (London: James Currey; Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann;Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers; Harare: Baobab; Cape Town: David Philip, 1995), x + 278 pages. £

11.95. ISBN 083255-533-4

David Kerr’s wide-ranging study, although the title suggests it restricts itself to a particular brand of theatre on the African continent, touches on practical every known aspect of theatrical activity, including radio and television

plays and film. This exceptional chronological and geographical coverage is both the strength and weakness of the book. In twelve discrete chapters Kerr moves from pre-colonial times through to the present, covering such diverse material as colonial entertainment, militaristic mime, literary drama, Concert

Parties and Yoruba Opera, the Travelling Theatre Movement, Theatre for Development, popular theatre and the other media, theatre and national ideology formation, theatre and the liberation struggle in Southern Africa. From

this still incomplete list it is clear that the term ‘Popular Theatre’ has its work cut out for it as a catch-all concept for practically every major theatrical development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The author alludes to these difficulties in the preface, when he writes: I found it necessary to use ‘popular’ to cover a broad spectrum of genres, ranging from those which were ‘populist’ in that they mystified the people through offering them escapist forms of entertainment or atavistic ritual, to those which the people self-consciously adopted as ideological weapons in the struggle against imperialism or neo-colonialism (x).

The problem is less one of generic specification than of identifying the notoriously complex noun to which popular is supposed to be an attributive. As an adjectival form meaning ‘of the people’ the term ‘popular’ begs more questions than it answers, as the European theorists of ‘popular theatre’ discovered. In the same preface Kerr suggests the Gramscian term ‘subaltern’ as a synonym for what he normally means by ‘people’ in the African context. Ultimately, popular theatre is for Kerr in its ideal form theatre which in some form or another takes an oppositional stance against colonial, neocolonial, capitalist structures and appealing to economically disadvantaged sections of the population. These could be, depending on context, of peasant of proletarian make-up. All the material that Kerr considers, including much that is clearly not ‘popular’ in the terms set out, can be analyzed and criticized with this ideal as a yardstick.

256

MATATU

This broadly (or narrowly?) materialist approach to theatrical phenomena results not surprisingly in some odd assessments. The book begins with a discussion of pre-colonial theatrical forms, concentrating perforce on selected examples such as Egungun and Okumkpa masquerades in order to outline what Kerr means by ‘popular’ and to elaborate his ideological approach to this material. He approaches such phenomena on the lookout for “class formation”, even if it is “only of a fairly embryonic kind” (9), or for a reflection in the performances of the Bamana of “contradictions within the relations of production” (5). Quite apart from the question whether every stratified pre-industrial society can be sensibly approached with the terminology of class formation, the more important issue is the applicability of a materialist methodology to performance phenomena in this kind of crass formulation. Because these terms appear on practically every page in some chapters (but not all) their ability as methodological premisses to formulate new questions and thereby elicit new answers to familiar material becomes severely limited. They run the danger of providing a set of repetitive criteria anticipating the results of any phenomenon to which they are applied. The author unconsciously draws attention to the reductive quality of his methodology in the suggestion for further research into the Makisi masquerade tradition among the Mbunda people of North Western Zambia: It would be possible, I believe, to make a study of modern Makisi (particularly outside the Mbunda region), using modified aesthetic criteria, which would show the theatre’s transformation into a vehicle portraying class formation, the Mbunda people’s contact with the neighbouring dominant Lozi people, and ultimately its articulation with the wider cash economy of Zambia (44). One feels almost sorry for the research student entrusted with the project who does not find evidence of such class formation and “articulation with the wider cash economy.” Kerr clearly sees his study as a counter balance to the many studies which have privileged ‘aesthetic’ criteria. The need to redress the balance by

providing a sociological antithesis to the ‘colonial’ thesis of aesthetic preoccupation was an important step in the 1960s and 1970s. However, methodological and theoretical reflection have moved on considerably since those days, even in theatre studies which tends to lag behind developments in other disciplines. The old problem besetting Marxist literary criticism (and criticism of any kind of aesthetic phenomena for that matter) of “bridging the gap between superstructural and base levels” to cite Edward Said’s critique of American Marxist theorists,! is not addressed in this study at all, it is ' Edward Said: Orientalism. (New York: Vintage), p.13.

Book Reviews i e tC‘ ‘C‘é 257 simply done, page after page. Kerr’s Marxist methodology obstructs his project in another way, too. The ideal of ‘popular’ theatre he is searching for, the manifestations of a theatre “capable of speaking to broadly varied audiences” (112), stands in stark contrast to the Marxist premiss of societies divided into antagonistic class formations, which would appear to preclude just such a theatre. I suspect that there are many theatre forms and genres in Africa which do/ or have in fact come close to this ideal, but their appeal illustrates that cultural boundaries and allegiances are much more flexible than class analysis would have us believe. While my criticisms of the methodological approach are many, the book can still be read with great profit, independent of its ‘politics’. The author has marshalled a vast amount of research into various forms of African theatre and presents an extremely useful synthesis of it. It is certainly the most up-to-date overview of the main currents in this research. Chapters 3 and 4, “The Reactions of Indigenous African Theatre to Colonialism” and “Militaristic Mime” pick up on the well known practice of Egungun masquerades to incorporate parodistically elements of colonial culture, but expand and varies this with fascinating examples from other African cultures. Militaristic mime refers to fully developed syncretic performance forms such as Beni in East Africa (Kerr draws here mainly on Terence Ranger’s renowned study } and Malipenga in Malawi, which fused elements of European military parades with indigenous dances. Here again, the focus of questions of class analysis and attribution obscure the more complex questions of negotiating ethnic, tribal and social borders as well as ones of aesthetic creativity that such syncretic phenomena represent. Of considerable interest too, perhaps because it is unusual in a book devoted mainly to live theatre, is the chapter devoted to ‘Popular Theatre & Macro-Media,” meaning in this context radio and television and film. Although the coverage is necessarily brief, Kerr touches on the key issues of drama in other media in various African contexts. He moves rapidly over interesting material (Soyinka’s early television play), examples from Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, Senegal. The interesting comments on Ousmane Sembene’s and Med Hondo’s films draw attention to the need to view many of the issues revolving around ‘popular theatre’ in a cross-media context. Not only do the writers and performers themselves move between media (see Duro Ladipo’s successful television show) but audiences themselves are becoming increasingly competent in the different media. This is in many ways the most stimulating chapter in the whole book, because it opens the way for more interesting and necessary research. The chapters devoted to Theatre * Terence Ranger: Beni, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa. (London: Heinemann, 1975).

258

MATATU

for Development and Southern African Theatre are useful only to the novice, as both areas have been extensively researched and are the subjects of booklength studies. A Despite the methodological criticisms made (and the same criticisms could be levelled at much theatre research emerging from Southern Africa where old-school Marxist theory still seems to enjoying an anachronistic flowering) this book deserves to find a wide readership amongst both established scholars and those seeking an up-to-date introduction to the most important developments in African theatre outside the area of literary drama. It is certainly the first of its kind to continually link anglophone and francophone theatre with occasional references to Lusiphone examples with this breadth of coverage. Christopher Balme

(München)

Jana Gohrisch. (Un)Belonging? Geschlecht, Klasse, Rasse und Ethnizität in der britischen Gegenwartsliteratur: Joan Rileys Romane. [Europäische Hochschulschriften/European University Studies, 14; 276]. (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1994). 250 pages. DM 74.00. To speak of Riley’s fiction without reference to the context in which it is produced would be unthinkable", wrote Isabel Carrera Suarez in 1991.' This applies, in more ways than one, to Jana Gohrisch’s respective dissertation from the same year. Not only does Gohrisch consciously present the work of contemporary novelist Joan Riley, who was born in Jamaica but has spent all her adult life in Britain, in its various contexts, but it is equally unthinkable to grasp her own study in full without recourse to the history of its (re-) writing. Jana Gohrisch wrote her dissertation during the final months of the Ger-

man Democratic Republic, and she worked on it in Leipzig, whose citizens became famous for their regular Monday marches that turned into a peaceful revolution. The dissertation was accepted in 1991 but remained unpublished and restricted to a library deposit of only seven copies, under the usual academic regulations within the GDR that had by then already ceased to exist. These regulations would have effectively barred the study both from aca-

' “Absent Mother(Land)s: Joan Riley’s Fiction.” Motherlands: Black women’s writing from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia, ed. Susheila Nasta (London: Women’s Press, 1991), pp.290-309,

Book Reviews -

259 7 demic recognition and from that wider audience for whom it evidently had been conceived. : Gohrisch’s persistent efforts finally resulted in the publication of an en-

larged version, now under review. What it must have meant to resume work on an already completed (but unsupported) study at a time when people in

East Germany after unification experienced radical changes in every part of life, is difficult to understand exactly for someone like myself who has grown up and lived through this period in Western Germany. (For casual comment, see her introduction and the asides on pp. 18, 20, 96, 108.) Considering all these unfavourable circumstances, Jana Gohrisch deserves respect for her remarkable persistence alone. Like in a palimpsest, the older version makes itself felt occasionally, either in terminology (83-84) or in the casual reference to a German translation (and not an English edition) of Virginia Woolfs essays (30) — remnants of a time when there was only limited access to literature (6). This underlines, on the other hand, the amount of reading done after 1991 that went into the enlarged version (whose bibliography comprises 30 pages). The published study profits from the additional analysis of Joan Riley’s most re-

cent fictional work (that came out in 1992) and from the discussion of secondary studies that either paralleled Gohrisch’s first effort (eg. the essay by Carrera Suarez already quoted from) or that have appeared since. Gohrisch’s approach is socio-literary and contextual. All four categories mentioned in her title (gender, class, race and ethnicity) are defined as social constructs (17-26), as are literature and culture (26, 66, 209). Gohrisch takes account of post-colonial and post-modemist criticism (60, 65-67, 85-86), but only feminist theories are discussed at length, and particular attention is given to a sketch of the various branches of ‘Black Feminism’ (13, 21-23). Having thus stressed the importance of those contexts she sees as essential to a full understanding of Riley’s fiction, and clearly stated her methodological position, Gohrisch nevertheless repeatedly distances herself from any deterministic view of the relationship between texts and contexts (29, 67), Moreover, she commits herself to an interpretation that ideally were devoid of all pre-conceptions on the side of the literary critic and just listens to the text (27-28, 35; an approach perhaps comparable to Ranke’s idea of historical analysis, and in my view similarly open to argument). In the main part of her study, two chapters of roughly equivalent length, Gohrisch then gives her analysis and interpretation of Joan Riley’s four novels published since 1985 (chap. 4), and links them to the already mentioned contexts that are now delineated in greater depth (chap. 3). The experience of black women in both Britain and Jamaica is central to Riley’s novels. Gohrisch describes her work as prominent example of con-

260

MATATU

temporary writing in Britain which is committed to an ethnic and feminist point of view. She understands her own analysis as a case study (209), in which she is particularly interested in the way identity processes are fictionalized in the novels (117). Character analysis thus is central to her argument, but not exclusively so: it always looks to those wider areas of experience that are related to sexual, economic, racial and cultural issues in both British and Caribbean society. Another significant feature of Riley’s novels is the way she uses varieties of English to mark her characters’ self-fashioned identity on a continuum with Jamaican Creole/ ‘roots’ and British English/assimilation at either end. Gohrisch underlines this aspect of Riley’s art by regularly including a short, but detailed linguistic analysis of each novel. Yet for all her sympathy with Riley’s concerns, Gohrisch’s study neverturns into eulogy. She does not shy away from pointing at artistically unsatisfying features, and is particularly critical of Riley’s third novel, which is shown to be appropriately titled Romance (even if done with a different aim in mind). . This leads to another point. Any extended study which (like Jana Gohrisch’s one) is concerned with only a few, artistically uneven novels of one contemporary writer at the beginning of her career must face questions as to the representative character of its results. Gohrisch’s ‘case study’ stands this test very well, not because she has added the analysis of a fourth novel, but because she convincingly places Riley’s novels in the contemporary literary scene in Britain (not just that of ‘black women’s writing’ alone, even if this aspect dominates). One of the purposes of this study is to bring about not only a better recognition of Joan Riley’s work, but of that within ethnic minorities in Britain on the whole (36). Chapter 3, nearly half of the study, is devoted to contextual information. A well-researched survey of the social, economic and political situation of ethnic minorities (and especially women) in Britain (3644) is followed by an account of the cultural developments, seen under a community aspect (44-54). The succeeding presentation of distinguishing features of the works of writers in the Caribbean (54-63) and of Caribbean writers now living in Britain, the USA or Canada (63-109) isa literary history in nuce. Its inherent structure (and the position of Riley’s biography, which is also included) would clearly be more apparent if a subdivision into several smaller chapters had been made, but this is not really an obstacle. Gohrisch moves easily from genre to genre, focussing primarily on women’s writing but including comparisons to prominent male authors (75-78, 92-97). True to her methodological stance, she never forgets to comment on market-

Book Reviews

261 2 ing policies within publishing that are responsible for the public image of this kind of literature. The chapter is primarily addressed to German readers (5) and provides them with what must presently be the most extensive account of Black British literature’ in their language. Helge Nowak (Regensburg)

Author’s Addresses

CHRISTOPHER BALME, Institut fiir Theaterwissenschaft, Universitat, 80539 Miinchen, GERMANY

Ludwig-Maximiliams-

MADELEINE BORGOMANO, Centre des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université de Provence, 29, Avenue Robert Schuman, 13621 Aix-en-Provence Cédex 1,

FRANCE THOMAS BRUCKNER, Walter-Heise-Strasse 2, 04137 Leipzig, GERMANY

JAMES CURREY, James Currey Publishers, 73 Botley Road, Oxford OX2 OBS GEOFFREY V. DAVIS, Institut fiir Anglistik, RWTH Aachen, Karmanstr. 50214 Aachen, GERMANY BETI ELLERSON, 1620 Fuller St. NW’412, Washington, DC 20009, USA

17-19,

JANA GOHRISCH, Institut fiir Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, GERMANY RATIBA

HADJ-MoussA,

Institute

of Women’s

Studies,

Queen’s

University,

Kingston, Ont. K7L 3N6, CANADA

FRANCES HARDING, Dept. of African Languages and Culture, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UNITED KINGDOM

KENNETH W. HARROW, English Dept., Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1036, USA

CRAIG W. MCLUCKIE, English Dept., Okanagan University College, 7000 College Way, Vernon, B.C. VIB 2N5, CANADA SUZANNE H. MACRAE, English Dept., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville AK 72701, USA MILDRED MORTIMER, Dept. Of French and Italian, University of Colorado, CB 238, Boulder, CO 80309-0234USA

HELGE Nowak, Institut fiir Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universitat Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, GERMANY

EMILIE NGO-NGUIDIJOL, Dept. of African Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA

—

Adresses

263

J.O.J. NWACHUKWU-AGBADA, School of Humanities, Abia State University, ~ Uturu, NIGERIA

Frangoise Pfaff, Dept. Of Modern Languages and Literatures, Howard University, Washington, DC, USA AMADOU BOOKER SADJI, Département d’Allemand, Institut des langues étrangères appliqués, Faculté des lettres, Université Cheick Anta Diop, Dakar,

SENEGAL

NANCY J. SCHMDT, African Studies Program, University, Bllomington, IN 47405, USA

221

Woodburn

Hall, Indiana

WILLIAM A. VINCENT, English Dept., Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1036, USA STEPHEN A. ZACKS, 145, Ludloe, New York, NY 10002, USA

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AFRIKAANS LITERATURE RECOLLECTION, REDEFINITION, RESTITUTION Papers held at the 7th Conference on South African Literature at the

Protestant Academy, Bad Boll

Edited by Robert Kriger and Ethel Kriger Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 1996. 336 pp. ISBN: 90-420-0053-8 ISBN: 90-420-0051-1 Contents:

INTRODUCTION.

(Matatu 15-16) Bound Hfl. 165,-/US-$ 110.50 Paper Hfl. 45,-/US-$ 30.Robert KRIGER: Afrikaans

Literature: Recollection,

Redefinition, Restitution. ARTICLES. Achmat DAVIDS: Laying the Lie of the “Boer” Language: An Alternative View of the Genesis of Afrikaans. Jean LOMBARD: The Reorientation and Redevelopment of Afrikaans in Namibia. Vernon FEBRUARY: The Many Voices of the Land. Hein WILLEMSE: The Invisible Margins of Afrikaans Literature. Ampie COETZEE: Afrikaans Literature in the Service of Ethnic Politics? Johan van WYK: Afrikaans Poetry and the South African Intertext. Philip van der MERWE: What the Canon Saw: SocioPolitical History, Afrikaans Poetry and its “Great Tradition”. Marlene van NIEKERK: Afrikaner Woman and Her “Prison”: Afrikaner Nationalism and Literature. Etienne van HEERDEN: Answering the Father's Father: Koos Prinsloo’s “By die skryf van aantekeninge oor’n reis". Patrick PETERSEN: Publication and Power: Views of the Marginalised. Andries Walter OLIPHANT: COSAW and Publishing for All. MARKETPLACE. Henry CHAKAVA: Publishing Ngugi: The Challenge, the Risk and the Reward. With an Appendix on Useful References on Ngugi’s Work. Cristine MATZKE: A Preliminary Checklist of East African Women Writers. CREATIVE WRITING. Louis CHARLES: Friday Night. Louis CHARLES: The Postman. Madeleine LOYSON: Four Poems. Sidwell DESAI: The circus site. Nick HARTEL: For the sake of the cause. Andrina FORBES: Section 29. Mzi MAHOLA: Return to my birthplace. Peter PLUDDEMANN: Homecoming (in F). Peter PLUDDEMANN: One Azania, One Oration. Andries Walter OLIPHANT: Two Love Poems and A Self-Portrait. Andries Walter OLIPHANT: The Splash. A Short Story. Lesego RAMPOLOKENG: Rap 1. Lesego RAMPOLOKENG: dark light, light dark. Interviews. Reviews.

USA/Canada:

Editions Rodopi B.V., 2015 South Park Place, Atlanta, GA

30339, Tel. (770) 933-0027,

Call toll-free (U.S. only) 1-800-225- 3998,

Fax (770) 933-9644, E-mail: [email protected] All Other Countries: Editions Rodopi B.V., Keizersgracht 302-304, 1016 EX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. + + 31 (0)20-622-75-07, Fax ++ 31 (0)20-638-09-48, E-mail: [email protected]

ETHIK UND POLITIK AUS INTERKULTURELLER SICHT Hrsg. von R.A. Mall und Notker Schneider Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 1996. 327 pp. (Studien zur Interkulturellen Philosophie 5)

ISBN: 90-420-0012-0 ISBN: 90-420-0003-1

Bound Hfl. 160,-/US-$ 100.Paper Hfl. 45,-/US-$ 28.-

Inhalt: R.A. MALL: Was heiBt ‘aus interkultureller Sicht’? Ryosuke OHASHI: Die Zeit der Weltbilder. Wilhelm HALBFASS: Beobachtungen zur Grundlegung einer. interkulturellen Ethik. Franz Martin WIMMER: Polylog der Traditionen im philosophischen Denken. Dieter SENGHAAS: Interkulturelle Philosopie angesichts der Fundamentalpolitisierung der Welt. Bernhard WALDENFELS: Der Andere und der Dritte in interkultureller Sicht. Ernst Wolfgang ORTH: Universalität und Individualität der Kultur. Hans Rainer SEPP: Werte und Variabilität. Denkt Scheler über den Gegensatz von Relativismus und Universalismus hinaus? Onay SOZER: Kultur als Inszenierung. Andreas CESANA: Kulturelle Identität, Inkommensurabilität und Kommunikation. Morteza GHASEMPOUR: Zarathustras Konzeption einer elementaren Ethik und Nietzsches Zarathustra-Rezeption. Yihong MAO: Sein, Wert, Erfahrung des Lebens. Das Verhialtnis zwischen Mensch und Natur aus der Sicht des Daoismus. Byung-Chul HAN: Liebe, Gerechtigkeit und Gesetz. Ein interkultureller Streifzug. You-Zheng LI: Ethics and the Present World-Context. Gregor PAUL: Grundprobleme idealistischer und neokonfuzianischer (Li xue) Philosophie. Die Ontologisierung der Ethik, Tradition, Moderne und Humanitit. Rafael Angel HERRA: Rassismus und Selbstbetrug. Douwe TIEMERSMA: Uber ethnisch-narrative und ethische Identität (Senghor und Ricœur). Bina GUPTA: Status and Gender-Ascribed Stereotypes: A Bi-Cultural Comparison. John ERPENBECK: Interkulturalitat, sozialer und individueller Wertewandel. Ole DORING: Gedanken zur Interkulturellen Philosophie aus praktischer Perspektive. Angela Ales BELLO: Religiosität aus interkultureller Sicht. Heinz KIMMERLE: Das Problem des Todes aus interkultureller Sicht. Frank VIELLART: Phénoménologie et “Non-Dualité”. Notker SCHNEIDER: Interkulturalität und Toleranz im Ausgang von John Locke.

USA/Canada: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2015 South Park Place, Atlanta, GA 30339, Tel. (770) 933-0027, Call toll-free (U.S. only) 1-800-225- 3998, Fax (770) 933-9644, E-mail: [email protected] All Other Countries: Editions Rodopi B.V., Keizersgracht 302-304, 1016 EX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. ++ 31 (0)20-622-75-07, Fax ++ 31 (0)20-638-09-48, E-mail: [email protected]

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ALTERNATION: ANOTHER JOURNAL FOR ANOTHER TIME SUBSCRIPTION FORM As South Africa emerges into post-coloniality, what is needed is a vibrant

theoretical experimentalism which will defamiliarize traditional perceptions of our literature in order to construct a renewed, unrecognizable cultural history. ALTERNATION is an innovative academic journal produced by the newlyestablished interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Southern African Literature and Languages at the University of Durban-Westville. The Journal wishes to break down the ethnic-linguistic and disciplinary segregationism which has characterised literary studies in this region, and instead explores the trans-cultural and dialogic qualities of texts.

ALTERNATION comes out twice a year. Annual Subscriptions cost R40,00 (Overseas: US $20). Price for bookshops and for orders more than single copies is R30 (Overseas $17).

Please complete the following and return with cheque:

CSSALL University of Durban-Westville Private Bag x54001 Durban 4001 .… LLL

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JANE PLASTOW

African Theatre and Politics The evolution of theatre in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe A comparative study Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 1996. XIV,286 pp. (Cross/Cultures 24) ISBN: 90-420-0042-2

ISBN: 90-420-0038-4

Bound Hfl. 150,-/US-$ 100.-

Paper Hfl. 45,-/US-$

30.-

This study, the first book-length treatment of its subject, draws on a large base of elusive material and on extensive field research. It is the result of the author’s wide experience of teaching and producing theatre in Africa, and of her fascination with the ways in which traditional performance forms have interacted with, or have resisted, non-indigenous modes of dramatic representation in the process of evolving into the vital theatres of the present day. A comparative historical study is offered of the three national cultures of Ethiopia, Tanganyika/Tanzania, and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Not only (scripted) drama is treated, but also theatre in the sense of the broader range of performance arts such as dance and song. The development of theatre and drama is seen against the background of centuries of cultural evolution and interaction, from pre-colonial times, through phases of African and European imperialism, to the liberation struggles and newly-won independence of the present. The seminal relationship between theatre, society and politics is thus a central focus. Topics covered include: the function in theatre of vernacular and colonial languages; performance forms under feudal, communalist and socialist régimes; cultural militancy and political critique; the relationship of theatre to social élites and to the peasant class; state control (funding and censorship); racism and “separate development” in the performing arts; contemporary performance structures (amateur, professional, community and university theatre). Due attention is paid to prominent dramatists, theatre groups and theatre directors, and the author offers new insight into African perceptions of the role of the artist in the theatre, as well as dealing with the important subject of gender roles (in drama, in performance ritual, and in theatre practice). The book is illustrated with contemporary

photographs. USA/Canada: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2015 South Park Place, Atlanta, GA 30339, Tel. (770) 933-0027, Call toll-free (U.S. only) 1-800-225- 3998, Fax (770) 933-9644, E-mail: [email protected] All Other Countries: Editions Rodopi B.V., Keizersgracht 302-304, 1016 EX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. + + 31 (0)20-622-75-07, Fax ++ 31

(0)20-638-09-48, E-mail: [email protected]

CSSALE Centre for the Study of Southem African Literature and Languages

University of Durban-Westville Private Bag X54001 . Durban 4001

tel/fax + 8202245 email: [email protected]

CALL FOR PAPERS “Body, Identity, Sub-Cultures and Repression in Texts from Africa”

SECOND CSSALL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE VENUE: UNIVERSITY OF DURBAN-WESTVILLE DATE: 24-27 SEPTEMBER 1997

We encourage scholars from various disciplines, especially literature departments, history, anthropology, archaeology and the various African languages to participate Registration Fee: R150 if received before July 31 1997, R200 if received

later. Regular transport will be organised from the following places of accommodation: Glenmore Pastoral Centre: tel. (031)256271 fax (031)254877 City Lodge: tel.(031)321447 fax (031)32 1483

Blue Waters: tel (031) 32 4272 fax (031) 37 5817 Book in time to avoid disappointment. All proposals to reach the CSSALL before 31 August 1997

DIFFERENCE AND COMMUNITY Canadian and European Cultural Perspectives Ed. by Peter Easingwood, Konrad Gross, Lynette Hunter Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 1996. XIII,267 pp. (Cross/Cultures 25) ISBN: 90-420-0046-5 Bound Hfl. 140,-/US-$ 93.ISBN: 90-420-0050-3 Paper Hfl. 40,-/US-$ 27.This volume brings together essays which suggest that the relationship between Canada and Europe is a two-way process, as historically the traffic between them has been: either may have something to offer the other. Europe too acknowledges situations today in which “difference” and “community” are hard terms to reconcile. “Difference”

refers to gender,

sexuality, race, nationality,

or lan-

guage. “Community” is the collective understanding which must continually be renegotiated and reconstructed among these factors. The Canadian-European connection is one in which it seems especially appropriate to explore such circumstances. The topics covered include pioneer women’s writing, transcultural women’s fiction, canonical taxonomy of the contemporary novel, the city poem in Confederate Canada, poetry of the Great War, various ethno-cultural

perspectives

(Jewish,

South

Asian, Italian; Native

reappropriations; Quebec cinema), literature and the media, and small-press publishing. Some of the authors treated: Sandra Birdsell, Nicole

Brossard,

Jack Hodgins,

Henry

Kreisel,

Robert

Kroetsch,

Janice Kulyk Keefer, Archibald Lampman, Malcolm Lowry, Lesley Lum, Daphne Marlatt, Susanna Moodie, Bharati Mukherjee, Alice Munro, Frank Paci, and Susan Swan.

USA/Canada: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2015 South Park Place, Atlanta, GA 30339, Tel. (770) 933-0027, Call toll-free (U.S. only) 1-800-225- 3998, Fax (770) 933-9644, E-mail: [email protected]

All Other Countries: Editions Rodopi B.V., Keizersgracht 302-304, 1016 EX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. ++ 31 (0)20-622-75-07, Fax + + 31 (0)20-638-09-48, E-mail: [email protected]

FUSION OF CULTURES? Ed. by Peter O. Stummer and Christopher Balme Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 1996. XII,332 pp. ASNEL Papers 2 (Cross/Cultures 26) ISBN: 90-420-0044-9 Bound Hfl. 175,-/US-$ 109.-

ISBN: 90-420-0043-0

Paper Hfl. 50,-/US-$

31.-

The intention of this second volume of ASNEL Papers is to counter orthodox post-colonial emphases on “alterity”, “subversion”, and “counter-discourse” with another set of concepts: fusion, syncretism, hybridity,

creolisation,

cross-fertilisation,

cross-cultural

identity,

diaspora. Topics covered include: gender and identity; syncreticaesthetics in Nigerian and South African performing arts; “hyphenated identities” in diasporic fiction; reversals of colonial mimicry in Ugandan fiction; cultural reflexivity in the Victorian juvenile novel; the persistence of colonial traits in Zimbabwean war fiction; syncretic strategies of resistance in African prison memoirs; indigene life-histories and intercultural authorship; neo-essentialism in post-colonial critiques of the Rushdie Affair; US multiculturalism and political praxis; creolisation in Surinam; cultural complexities in the Caribbean epic; literary representations of the Haitian Revolution. Authors treated within broader frameworks include Margaret Atwood, R.M. Ballantyne, Marie-Claire Blais. Alejo Carpentier, Roch Carrier, Aimé Césaire, Michelle Cliff, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Edouard Glissant, Andrew Hacker, Eddy L. Harris, Wilson Harris, Bessie Head, C.L.R. James, Maxine Hong Kingston,

Jayanta Mahapatra, Paule Marshall, A.K. Mehrotra, Timothy Mo, Bharati Mukherjee, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Akiki Nyabongo, Eugene O’Neill, Molefe Pheto, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, Ted Trindell, and Derek Walcott. There are also poems by David Woods and Afua Cooper..

USA/Canada:

Editions Rodopi B.V., 2015 South Park Place, Atlanta, GA

30339, Tel. (770) 933-0027, Call toll-free (U.S. only) 1-800-225- 3998,

Fax (770) 933-9644, E-mail: F.van.der. [email protected] All Other Countries: Editions Rodopi B.V. , Keizersgracht 302-304, 1016 EX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. + + 31 (0)20-622-75- 07, Fax ++ 31 (0)20-638-09-48, E-mail: F.van.der. [email protected]

NEW BOOK FROM CSSALL PRESS

CONSTRUCTS OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE IN SOUTH AFRICAN LITERATURE JOHAN VAN WYK Introduction by Jean-Philippe Wade A collection of essays which uses the theories of psychoanalysis, Marxism

and semiotics

to interrogate the fabrications

of Afrikaner nationalist

subjectivity. In original readings of a range of Afrikaans plays and poems, Johan van Wyk identifies the exclusions of race and class which shaped the emergence of the dominant Afrikaner identity and literature in the decades before 1948. A comparative study of African nationalist writings offers much to contemporary debates about nationalism.

Johan van Wyk is professor of Southern African Literature at the University of Durban-Westville. He has published widely on Afrikaans literature. He is an editor of S4 in Poësie/SA in Poetry (1988), and has published three volumes of his poetry. Paperback ISBN 0-947445-26-9

Price: R40 (Overseas: $17)

This book can be ordered by filling in details below and sending a postal or cneque for R40/S17 to: ESSALE PRESS Usrversity of Durban-Westville Private Bag X54001 Dursan +000

Consiructs of Idennry

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SUE KOSSEW

Pen and Power

A Post-Colonial Reading of J.M. Coetzee and André Brink Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 1996. IX,253 pp. (Cross/Cultures 27) ISBN: 90-420-0097-X Bound Hfl. 130,-/US-$ 81.ISBN: 90-420-0094-5 Paper Hfl. 35,-/US-$ 21.50 Table of Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1 History, Mythography and Colonial Fictions. Dusklands (1974), An Instant in the Wind (1976) and The First Life of Adamastor (1993). 2 Language, Power and Place. In the Heart of the County (1977) and Looking on Darkness (1974). 3 Colonizer/Colonized: Paradoxes of Self and Other. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) and A Dry White Season (1979). 4 Re/presenting the Afrikaner. Rumours of Rain (1978) and An Act of Terror (1991). 5 Narrative, Silence, Voice. A Chain of Voices (1982) and Life & Times of Michael K (1983). 6 Authorship/Authority. The Wall of the Plague (1984) and Foe (1986). 7 Writing as Political Intervention. States of Emergency (1988) and Age of Iron (1990). 8 Text/Intertext. The Master of Petersburg (1994) and On the Contrary (1993). Conclusion. Bibliography.

USA/Canada:

Editions Rodopi B.V., 2015 South Park Place, Atlanta, GA

30339, Tel. (770) 933-0027,

Call toll-free (U.S. only) 1-800-225- 3998,

Fax (770) 933-9644, E-mail: [email protected] All Other Countries: Editions Rodopi B.V., Keizersgracht 302-304, 1016 EX Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. ++ 31 (0)20-622-75-07, Fax ++ 31 (0)20-638-09-48, E-mail: [email protected]

AFRICAN THEATRE TODAY A PHOTO DOCUMENTATION BY ECKHARD BREITINGER This exhibition of photographs illustrates theatrical work of African dramatists and directors inside and outside Africa between 1993 and 1995. The plays represented here range from Uganda (Alex Mukulu, The Wounds of Africa and Guest of Honour) through Zimbabwe (Amakhosi, Stithsa), anglophone and francophone Cameroon (Babila Mutija, Bole Butake, Before this Time Yesterday, and La troupe d'ébène, Les Bachantes) to Nigeria's Femi Osofisan (Nkrumah ni Afrika ni) and the latest Soyinka play, The Beatification of Area Boy. The differences in directorial style and stage facilities are revealed. The selection of photographs is such, that essential parts of the plot are represented. This exhibition has been shown at the African Literature Association Conference in Columbus, Ohio, Theater des Augenblicks in Vienna, the Albany Theatre in London and on the occasion of the world premiere of Soyinka's Area Boy in Leeds.

Two of the photographs were on the cover of the December 1995 issue of West Africa. A selection of photographs are available on postcard. Biographical Note: _ Eckhard Breitinger taught at universities in the West Indies, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Uganda, but also in Paris and Montpellier. He is now working at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Bayreuth. He is author and editor of a number of books on a wide range of topics, from eighteenth century English novel, to the rhetoric of American political address, radio literature and various aspects of African and Caribbean literature and theatre. He has translated a number of plays and written radio essays. His photographs were mostly published in connection with journalistic or academic pieces.

Eckhard Breitinger, Institute for African Studies, Universitat Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth

Phone: +49-921-553571, Fax +49-921-553627, E-mail: [email protected]

DAS MULTIVERSUM DER KULTUREN Beitrige zu einer Vorlesung im Fach ‘Interkulturelle Philosophie’ an der Erasmus Universitat Rotterdam Hrsg. von H. Kimmerle

Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA 1996. 239 pp. (Elementa 67) ISBN: 90-420-0108-9

Hfl. 70,-/US-§ 43.50

In den ‘Orolegomena’ wird vom Herausgeber der Durchbruch zu einer konsequenten Konzeption der interkulturellen Philosophie dargestellt. D. Tiemersma untersucht, wie Merleau-Ponty durch eine Auseinandersetzung mit kulturanthropologischen Forschungen zu einer Erweiterung des Be- — wuBtseinsbegriffs und der Rationalitétskonzeption gelangt. Die Anspriiche einer interkulturellen Philosophie werden von J. Hoogland von einer Habermas’schen Position aus kritisch iiberpriift. A.W. Prins interpretiert Heideggers ‘Angang der interkulturellen Auseinandersetzung’ trotz anders lautenden Auferungen dieses Autors als einen wichtigen Beitrag zur interkulturellen Philosophie. Für einen Aufweis der inneren Affinität zwischen japanischem Denken und einigen neonietzscheanischen Philosophen bezieht sich H. Oosterling auf Bataille, Barthes, Foucault, Lyotard und Derrida. Aus feministischer Perspektive wendet sich J. van den Oord der Frage der Universalität der Menschenrechte zu. In der Absicht, den Universalitätsanspruch der westlichen Demokratieform zu kritisieren, konfrontiert F. Uyanne afrikanische und westliche Demokratie-Konzeptionen. C. Jacobs beschreibt den interkulturellen Dialog, der in einigen wichtigen Kunstausstellungen in New York und Paris stattgefunden hat. Nachdem E. de Schipper tiefgehende Zweifel am hier beschrittenen Weg zur interkulturellen Philosophie ausgesprochen hat, werden zum SchluB in einer ‘Replik’ der Herausgebers noch einmal einige Ausgangspunkte des Projekts klargestellt.

USA/Canada:

Editions Rodopi B.V., 2015 South Park Place, Atlanta, GA

30339, Tel. (770) 933-0027, Call toll-free (U.S. only) 1-800-225- 3998,

Fax (770) 933-9644, E-mail: [email protected] All Other Countries: Editions Rodopi B.V., Keizersgracht 302-304, 1016 E Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. ++ 31 (0)20-622-5-07, Fax ++ 31 (0)20-638-09-48, E-mail: [email protected]

DEC 1 4 1999 MAY27 1999 aS on?

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITy LIBRARIES SIR GEORGE WILLIAMS CA MPUS WEBSTER LI BRARY