Las sangrientas

I've been chewing on Les Saignantes for over a year now. Immediately after I saw it, the aftertaste was a little bitter from the dark cinematography and the unexpected beginning. However, the benefit of a discussion with other movie-goers and the writer/director sweetened my palate a bit. The rich and varying perspectives about the film's futuristic time period, western and African cultural influence, sexuality, political plot, and the feminist subtext made quite a fattening but flavorful dessert. Since then, the wave of American movies about Africa, intense international focus on African markets and development, unprecedented philanthropic attention from the likes of Bill Gates and the Clinton Foundation, the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as Liberia's first female president, and a trip to Africa last summer has seasoned the relevance and significance of Les Saignantes for me. The film's political and cinematic irreverence provokes what every great film is supposed to - controversy, thought, change, and creative precedent. Les Saignantes pushed me to open my taste buds to a new flavor of African cinematic fare that may be ahead of its time, but definitely worth the bite.

I have seen Les Saignantes 3 times and each time like it more. It helps to know Africa a bit when you see it, because Bekolo is not trying to make the usual huts-and-boubous-film, but is trying to show the emotional realities of living in a corrupt, polluted, city where prostitution is rife and idealism is punished. The censorship board of Cameroon has not yet decided whether to censor it, supposedly for its sexual content but probably for its political stands. It's a pretty direct commentary on Cameroon's present government. I think the film misses its aims slightly, but that's because he was trying to do too much. He wants to show women prevailing, daring to fight back, to stand up, and he wants to adapt an African ritual (mevungu) in a modern form. He wants to make a political statement in a time when it's dangerous or irrelevant to do so. I still don't exactly get the turns of the plot, but I don't think the plot's that important. I enjoyed the images, even the MTV-ish ones, I enjoyed the references to other films, and I enjoyed the slapstick butchery, stuff you won't see in any other African film by any one else.

This movie is incredibly refreshing and thought-provoking.

First, as someone who is vaguely familiar with African cinema, the filmmaker is considerably avant-guard in his approach to the political satire. The lighting used to evoke emotion is both stark and beautifully layered against the destitute, and often scary backdrop of present day Cameroon.

Also, the protagonists of this film are women. More importantly, they are superheroes of sorts, who use their beauty and brains to get what they want and need in a country where the government does not fulfill its most basic function to its people, which is to provide an infrastructure that can sustain job development, education, and health care for its citizens. Their "super powers" come from a cultural tradition called the mevoungou, in which they use their sexual prowess to overtake their aggressors.

To be honest, I thought these women where gold-diggers when I started watching the film. However, they are so deeply connected to their culture that they derive strength from a cultural facet that can easily be mocked by most representatives of modernity.

The plot, though disjointed, does express one major point, which is that this film is not about the inabilities of a people, but rather that of a government. With so many initiatives starting back up that aim to help "Africa", such as LIVE EIGHT or the fight to end paybacks of IMF and WORLD BANK loans, there has been a real focus on a mass body of PEOPLE not being able to provide for itself. However, I think present day media furthers an injustice because as a privileged set, Americans can forget that Africans are part of a continent and within the continent are countries and nation states that are then sustained by governments. If those governments cannot provide for its people, can we simply say that the PEOPLE are destitute and lacking, or rather, should we say that their governments are?

The best part of this film is that rather than ask "What is wrong with Africa(ns)?," this film demands that the audience ask the question that often gets ignored in the debate which is, "What is wrong with African leaders and their method of governance?" This is a question worth being heard, and for that reason this is a film worth seeing.