Blu-ray Review: Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi on the Criterion Collection

Where Ousmane Sembène’s 1966 debut feature, Black Girl, clearly reflects the dynamics of French neocolonialism in its front-and-center depiction of a Senegalese nanny and her white Parisian employer, the filmmaker scrutinizes the relationship between oppressor and oppressed in a more allegorical fashion in his 1968 follow-up, Mandabi. Aside from a quick shot of a French family exiting the city hall where our protagonist, Ibrahim (Makuredia Guey), attempts to get a copy of his official birth certificate, Westerners are rarely glimpsed in the film. And yet, their presence lingers like a ghost throughout, almost haunting the Senegalese people, whether in the form of French names on government buildings or the bureaucratic red tape involved in a poor man trying to cash the titular money order. Sembène recognizes that even though Senegal became fully independent in 1960, the country was still shackled to its French colonizers.

The money order is sent to Ibrahim by his nephew, Abdu (Moussa Diuf), who’s recently found work in Paris. Though it initially seems like a godsend to the unemployed father, who has seven children and two wives to support, the film meticulously details the seemingly endless indignities that the man suffers as he trudges around Dakar trying to get an official identification so that he can actually cash the money order. Sembène’s tragicomic rendering of Ibrahim’s ordeal is an excoriating condemnation of colonial social architecture in Senegal—namely the bureaucracy that forces impoverished, often illiterate, individuals to travel often great distances in an almost deliberate attempt to subjugate them.

However sharp Mandabi’s critique of Senegal’s colonialist-enabled sociopolitical order may be, its examination of how the avarice inherent in this brutalized landscape has further frayed the country’s social fabric is more pointed. Ibrahim has infuriating encounters with everyone from the photographer who takes his picture for his license to openly corrupt workers at city hall, but no humiliation is more unsettling and defeating than the vulturous behavior of his friends and family, who seek to fleece him before he’s even cashed the money order.

Though Mandabi zeroes in on Ibrahim’s victimhood, it doesn’t see him as a virtuous innocent, as he’s mocked for his narcissism and sexism, and at one point is even referred to as “a hopeless show-off.” But the film also recognizes that his materialism, among other things, is a symptom of a society where usury and bribes are used by those in positions of power to plunder helpless individuals, who are left to fight among themselves for the scraps that remain. When a poor mother begs Ibrahim for money a second time, he wonders aloud, “When begging becomes a trade, what will come of this country?” Sembène richly contemplates that question, not only illustrating what has become of this country, but how many Senegalese have been transformed into warped versions of their former French oppressors.

Image/Sound

Criterion’s vibrant transfer of a new 4K restoration makes the blistering heat from the Senegalese summer sun feel downright palpable, with every bead of sweat rendered in vivid detail. The color balancing is consistently impressive, especially evident in the eye-catching hues that dominate the characters’ clothes, and without sacrificing the integrity of skin tones. The uncompressed monaural soundtrack is serviceable, with the only obvious flaws being a handful of moments where some of the line readings are a bit muddled.

Extras

Film scholar Aboubakar Sanogo’s introduction to Mandabi is a fascinating primer on Ousmane Sembène’s work. Sanogo’s enthusiasm goes a long way, and in just a half hour he provides ample context for Sembène’s pivot to filmmaking after writing several successful novels. He also discusses, among other things, the director’s resolute socialist and anti-colonialist views, his vast influence on African cinema, and his use of color in Mandabi. A recent conversation between author and screenwriter Boubacar Boris Diop and sociologist and feminist activist Marie Angélique Savané sticks to Sembene’s politics, stressing his importance in the youth movements of the late 1960s and his desire to use cinema to reach impoverished communities where illiteracy was common. The disc also comes with a new program, Praise Song, featuring outtakes from the 2015 documentary Sembène!, and Sembène’s 1970 short film Tauw. Along with a foldout booklet with an essay by critic and scholar Tiana Reid that teases out the political underpinnings of the film, there are also excerpts from a 1969 interview with Sembène along with his complete 1966 novella of Mandabi.

Overall

Criterion has accorded Mandabi with a vibrant new transfer and a wonderful assortment of extras that help to contextualize the works of Africa’s most important filmmaker.