eharrow

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.