Analysis Of The Film 'Moolaadé'

In rural Burkina Faso, middle-aged women clean and cook for their husbands, give birth to children, and nurture them. In their spare time, they gather together, listening to music played on the radio--their sole refuge from rural life. Sometimes, they host parties to celebrate their daughters undergoing a "purification" ritual, where little girls are "cut"--an euphemism to being mutilated.

In Moolaadé, Ousmane Sembene, "the father of the African cinema", depicts the struggle that women face in the intersection of tradition and modernity. Departing from the female genital mutilation (FGM hereafter) cases that are rampant happening in Africa, according to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), the film gives voice to women under male domination.

In doing so, Moolaadé is not a grim movie. One of its quintessential qualities is the fact that Sembene manages to display such a bitter, realistic topic with genial mise-en-scene. Moolaadé starts off with depicting daily lives of African women; carrying woods for cooking, cleaning, and kneeling when their husbands enter the room in order to show respect. Amidst such tedious village life, just a few feet ahead, a bunch of young girls are about to encounter the perils of FGM, not knowing if that would be the last memory they'd ever have, or if they'd be lucky enough

Collé (Fatoumata Coulibaly) is notorious for refusing her daughter, Amasatou (Salimata Traoré) to be castrated seven years back. She accepts their requests and henceforth protects them. For the locals, it's called moolaadé, which is the origin of the movie title. Here's how the moolaadé works: Collé sets up a colourful rope across the sides of the front door which forbids people from coming into her house and taking the kids away, and kids from going outside. Failure to obey this mooladé will result in traditional