Twist à Popenguine

Ça Twiste á Popenguine is a film that educated, entertained me, and warmed my heart. The story is based on two gangs in Popenguine, Senegal. As the film progresses, it shows the different languages that are spoken in Africa as well as romance between young characters. The film also integrated a lot of humor into its story with its young romances and wardrobe choices for some of the gang members. The director shows the colonization in Senegal and how the people are being influences by America and France. The film does a fine job at showing us that the Africans have much to offer just as the Europeans do. Africans may lack the education and language barriers but they thrive in the love for their culture and people. The film brings enjoyment to the audience when the school's French teacher, Mr. Benoit, is finally connecting with the African culture. This is shown through the people of Senegal singing to him and bringing them into their land completely. It very much reminded me of James Cameron's Avatar where the people of Pandora invite the outside, Jake Sully, into their land and show him not to be afraid. The feeling I got from Avatar was similar to the feeling I got while watching this film. The people of Pandora seem scary to Jake Sully, until he is shown their land and ways of life. He soon realizes their love for culture and that same realization is brought to Mr. Benoit.

The film showed how strong their traditions were through music, dance, and religion. After watching how they lived their lives, it made me feel nostalgic for a culture I've never had. A culture that is so full of happiness and old tradition is something I think a lot of cultures lack. This film inspired me, made me laugh, and educated me on the traditions of Africa and Colonization. The film shows some hardships but with added humor. The film sheds a positive light on the people of Africa and I highly recommend the film!

Ca Twiste a Popenguine allows its' viewers to take a somewhat raw glimpse into the conflict between generations, caused by the colonization of one's country. Moussa Sene Absa (director and writer) does not convey a clear pro or con stance on the changing culture of Senegal, but does provide a rather complete look at both sides of the issue. He provides this raw look through his characters and their interactions with one another, the setting (Poponguine, Senegal), and time frame (1960's) of the film.

Ca Twiste a Popenguine is a movie best suited for one with some background information about Senegal or Africa in general. An uniformed (or entertainment-seeking) viewer would most likely miss the messages being sent by Absa; However, he does include many humorous perceptions of the American culture throughout the movie to keep the attention of the uniformed!

Ca Twiste a Popenguine is directed by Moussa Sene Absa. The film was directed in Senegal in 1993. The genre in the film is comedy. The main characters in the movie are just locals from Senegal where the movie was filmed. The major character is Baac whom the story is told by. In addition, the Ins and Kings are main groups in the film. The film takes place weeks before Christmas in a small seaside town in Senegal in 1964. The entire movie is based around the teenagers where they go to school, work, and try to put together a party. During the school the teens are forbidden to talk in Wolof (their main language) because in this era French is what is being taught and forced. Baac is the main story teller of the film where he takes love letters and runs other errands for the older teens. During the film the Ins whom have the ladies want to throw a surprise party, but have no record player. In the end when everything is going good they get into trouble by the older tradition that still follow the old African culture. The message Moussa Sene Absa is trying to push is the coming of age. The point of the story is to show the coming-of-age through the use of the teenagers in the village. For instance, the story shows two different African cultures through the old generation who follow the traditional and the young teens that follow the new era. He wants to show how the future is in the teens hands. In addition, why beat someone for being different for that is why we have diversity and what keeps the world unique. I would recommend this film for someone interested in Senegal or the non-western point of view. However, I would not recommend it if you do not like captions because the entire movie is in captions.

Ca Twiste a Popenguine is a great movie that shows what it is like to live to present day Senegal, the people, the culture, and how they all perceive themselves. Beyond the poor editing and subtitles lies a wonderful tale of the difference in generations that Moussa Sene Absa describes as colonization. Although the two groups of children didn't like each other, the King's and the In's, they were both into American music and clothes. To the kids, they were just being themselves from what they have seen and heard, but the Elders; they were becoming westernized and saw as a threat to the Wolof tradition.

Moussa Sene Absa did an amazing job writing and directing Ca Twiste a Popenguine. For the low budget, nonprofessional actors/actresses, Absa created a great tale of what it is like to be in Senegal. This movie could be compared to any movie in the United States. It's just a bunch of kids trying to make money and having fun. They get in trouble and still defy their "elders" and continue to be mischievous by doing the same things over and over again. It's a fun movie but also a deeper meaning behind it.

The embers of European imperialism have yet to cool in much of Africa, but in the seaside post-French-colonial village of Poponguine, Senegal, the effects of cultural colonization were as soft as candlelight and as animated as James Brown. That is the image that Moussa Sene Absa created in the 1993 film Ça Twiste à Poponguine, his celebration of the time when his home, a traditional African village in the 1960's, underwent integration of American and French cultural influences. Absa remembers that time through the character Bacc, a young native, who without a mother or father, is raised by a community of growing pluralism. Bacc's notable daily activities consist of going to school where the children learn French from M. Benoit (sent from France to continue French integration), and running errands for older kids in a street-wise hustler fashion, bearing his personal interests above the rest. The plot focuses on rival teen cliques during the Christmas season of 1964: the Kings, who own the town's only record player, but had no girls; and the Inseparables or `Ins', who had no record player, but had girls - `and that was key,' notes Bacc. Each group hoped to attain what the other had, and Bacc plays each group in order to forward his own causes, unexpectedly resulting in a raucous between the gangs, and the conflagration of one gang's hangout. But with no serious injuries, the events that transpire lead to a greater unity in the community and a generally feel-good movie that deals lightly but appropriately with the issues of cultural colonization.

Absa gracefully touches on difficult issues, like Africa's forgotten identity and European-American view of Africa through Social Darwinism, by proportioning the seriousness of those issues to their effects on the daily lives of characters in the movie. Dame Castiloor, the village's mother-of-all, a Vodun practitioner, a symbol of both traditional culture and the maternal role, talks to Bacc about his education. Although he is learned in French history, the Dame encourages him to revive the history of Africa. On a previous night, kids gather to hear the Dame tell a fairy tale about the tiny dwarf with a gourd full of gold. The dwarf blocks the road from passers-by, challenging them to fight. The Dame asks why, and Bacc answers that if a knight could defeat him he would become the richest of all, but if he loses he will be cursed and remain poor and blind, wifeless and childless. 'The losers will have no control over the future of their world,' it seems to say, in one of the most cryptic (and most memorable) scenes of the film.

One difficult scene to bear is one which Benoit, inebriated, concludes that if Africa colonized Europe, Europe would have lost all culture. Benoit, in his state of drunkenness does not represent his own true beliefs, but the general colonial attitude; in his lucid moments, he is merely another displaced person in search of his own place in the world, as shown in a dialogue between him and a Muslim notable, spoken in Woloff. Benoit's desire to leave Poponguine continues to grow as he feels more and more an outsider, despite different figures of authority in the village who wish him to stay; when he is finally integrated into the village, it is not by the pontifications and prayers of religious figures Perè Joseph or El Hadj Gora, but by the singing of Dame Castiloor and the children. Although the issues may seem somewhat coarse in writing, Absa puts them in action without forcing the idea through extreme camerawork or manipulation of the characters; the ideas flow naturally through the story and the characters' symbolic meaning, so that the average viewer will not be put off by the issues, and the less-than-average viewer may not even perceive many of them (the sign that reads "Popenguine").

There are uncountable moments of nearly imperceptible pokes and prods at the current state of affairs in Poponguine, one being the joke mentioned in the previous paragraph. The man who approaches Benoit talks of a `beautiful black boy' his wife just gave birth to, which must not be Benoit's child, he jokes. Even as a joke, it can imply that in the traditional group-oriented African village, a child's father is every man in the village; men can take multiple wives in accordance with local Islamic practice. The ideas held by such notables are held in contrast to the ideas of the teens. For example, Sylvie Vartan and Johnny Hallyday of the `Ins' group have a relationship based on romance and monogamy, which annoys Otis Redding of the `Kings' because as the cousin of Otis, Sylvie should be promised to him in the traditional manner. This shows the shift from dominant Islam to Christianity possible in the upcoming generation, but like many ideas presented in the movie, the viewer has the freedom to make those connections and inferences.

The freedom that the viewer has to make connections and inferences, and think more deeply about the issues of the movie is what makes Moussa Sene Absa's Ça Twiste à Poponguine more enjoyable than American mainstays of the socio-cultural genre. The camerawork is tastefully understated and carefully considered, as is the editing. Never does a scene seem to drag on, and the scenes that are building to something are spiced with a dashes of humor, such as the scene at Ginette's when one of the young adults is talking about sexual encounters with a drowsy woman to Benoit, whose worsening condition as a lonely drinker is being presented in this scene. The subtlety of so many issues and ideas makes this movie a joy to watch, its worry-free presentation allows one to watch again in order to pick up on subtle implications and decipher the symbolic meaning of characters. Altogether a cheerful tribute to his childhood home, Absa's Ça Twiste à Poponguine will lighten the heart as you witness a movie that itself symbolizes the relatively smooth cultural transition of Poponguine.