Ceddo

Ok - Ceddo starts slow and I'm as impatient as the next guy - even if that was then, this is 25-yrs after. No matter.

In a second recent viewing, the RC Missionaries were just as fanatatical, greedy and stupid as I'd recalled. The Muslims were as fanatic, greedy and eager to turn a buck (dinar?) by selling off any Senegalese who disn't - WHAM! - adopt Islam. Buyers were slave-trading Portuguese RCs who hadn't been quite dumb enough to be slaughtered earlier in the flick by the invading Osama-style Muslims.

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates of Harvard may have missed "Ceddo" - but Skip appears to get the point. Maybe. My three kids - Herself and li'l Kobe and MJ - me harder sells. But they're at "that age." Fine: they think I'm at "that age," too. Again, no matter.

See it!

It's some time .... well, it looks like it's early 19th century, but there are lots of outliers in garb. There are new folks around, and the slave-traders, Christians and a short Muslim imam are competing for dominance. The king has turned Muslim and orders everyone to convert, but the Ceddo, traditionalist animists not only resist, but kidnap the royal princess. There's a council in which claimants argue over who gets to rescue her, but the guy guarding her has no problem with them.

It was banned by Senegal because it wasn't respectful of Islam. To my eye, it didn't like anyone.

It's a little slow, although whether because director Sembene had a lot of things to say and felt a need to pound them into the audience, or because he wished his audience to be annoyed with all his characters, I cannot say. Sembene directs this one with a strong composition. In my review of his earlier SEMITAI, I noted that his compositions were loose, more groupings by color than framing. With this movie, he moves in the opposite direction, rarely using the entire frame, but clearly marking off the portion he wanted to use.

An interesting picture, though a tad slow. Three cultures, the ceddo, the Christians and the Muslims are tensely struggling for power in rural Africa. The ceddo (which means "outsider") have kidnapped the king's daughter because they are sick of having to kowtow to the power-hungry imam (the film is surprisingly unkind toward Islam, and was actually banned for that reason in Sembene's native Senegal). I loved the colors and the music. The story is good, but there are a few too many sequences of the characters sitting around debating the various merits of their religions (which amounts to, "If you don't believe what I believe, you're going to Hell!"). That stuff gets old quick.

Ceddo is one of the first films to come out of Africa (it was promptly banned in Senegal). It contains both subtle and not-so-subtle political messages in the conversations of characters fighting to keep their traditional way of life. The film holds a wealth of information that the casual eye might not catch. Linguists and other language buffs will enjoy the form and styles of speech (no one speaks directly to those of higher class, a major form of communicating ideas is to use metaphorical sayings, etc.). Those fascinated by culture will notice the myriad customs that might go unnoticed to other viewers. It is a film of revolt! Highly recomended.

the dream of cinema becoming (again) a world language has always seemed to me to cover a sadder loss - which language? almost certainly, mainstream narrative well - watch this film and see another way of doing things it's funny, profound, conversational, slow (??? do the other people mean long takes?? the film is not slow at all) and timeless and the colours and the central position of Woman and - yes - the rigour of Sembene make this (still 30 years on) a landmark of world cinema and so light a man with trousers of fat should not stand close to the fire right