A Senegalese satirical comedy, in which black businessmen adopt European mannerisms as they cheat and swindle, take several wives, carry briefcases full of cash, wash their cars in Evian and displace deformed beggars. Thierno Leye takes a third wife but is cursed with impotence. (He has failed to adhere to the pre wedding night custom of sitting in a mortar with the pestle sticking out between the legs!) He manages to get a witch doctor to remove the spell but then loses everything - the ending is him being spat on, those spitting sounds even extending beyond the freeze frame and cut to black. Good stuff too about French language versus local Wolof. Little zoom in on minaret didn't escape my notice - it is a Muslim country despite all this nonsense.
Rather crudely and cheaply made and acted. Sembene was a celebrated novelist and the film was - according to Mark Cousins - 'funny and popular', and he was an important figure in Senegalese film culture - he had made the first black African feature film The Black Girl in 1965.
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| There's the symbolic pestle and mortar, bottom left! |
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