Film Review: Moolaade

The father of African film has done it again.

Ousmane Sembene's provocative film, Moolaade, brings to the screen the controversial issue of female circumcision, or what opponents call it Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Like all of his past films, Moolaade is a film that makes you think about the subject and its consequences long after leaving the cinema.

It revolves around the clash of traditions in a small Senegalese village. Colle (Fatoumata Coulibaly), the second of four wives of a powerful man, has refused to let her daughter be cut or purified. Now six girls flee from a 'purification' ritual, and four of them seek refuge with her. Colle agrees to help them, and invokes "moolaade," (protection). She ties a strand of bright yarn across the entrance to her compound, and it is understood by everyone that as long as the girls stay inside the compound, they are safe, and no one can step inside to capture them.

Colle knows first hand what the young refugees are going through, as she had the same procedure done to her. And now her own daughter, Amsatou, is going through the same dilemma. Amsatou is engaged to a man who will one day be the head of the tribe. He has just returned to the village as a successful businessman in Paris. Although he is cosmopolitan, Western educated and modernized, he would still prefer a woman has gone through the circumcision.

What is most important to understand is that although men in the village want the women to go through 'purification,' it is actually the women of the village that enforce this procedure. 'Purification' involves removing parts of their genitals so they will have no feeling during sex. When the subject of female genital mutilation is brought up in the Western media, it is ususally discussed as if the men are actually carrying out the procedure, when in fact it is the opposite. In the film a group of marauding women who are responsible for carrying out 'Purification' on the village's females, is led by the doyenne des exciseuses (Mah Compaore), a fierce looking woman who carries the unsanitized 'purifier' (knife) on her side.

Sembene creatively brings together the issues of culture and religion. The practice of female genitla mutilation is common throughout Africa to this day, especially in Muslim areas, although many scholars have said that Islam actually condemns it. I like the image use of the battery powered radios. At some point in the film the council of men that rule the village decides that is time to ban radios because they are a Western influence on the women who want 'protection.'

So is this an issue of keeping tradition or going Western? Currently there is a bill being debated in the Sierra Leone legislature that would ban female genital mutilation. However, the bill is facing severe opposition.

‘'Female Genital Mutilation is an integral part of our culture. It shouldn't be banned because it helps prepare our young girls for marriage and it curbs promiscuity,'' says 24-year-old Sierra Leonean Marie Bangura in a IPS interview. She has gone through the procedure herself.

She goes on to say that its ceremonial rites ‘'inculcates a sense of belonging in young girls, teaches them to keep secrets and be disciplined.''


On the other hand, supporters of the bill point out the severe medical complications of the procedure, such as infertility, non-stop bleeding and some cases, death.

'The initiators often use unsterilised blades to incise the genital organs and there is hardly any proper post-operation medication. I think this is the major problem,'' says Dominic Sesay, a child rights activist, in the same interview.

‘'Even the spurious argument that it decreases the girl's urge for sex, hence curbing promiscuity is a falsehood. We have seen more promiscuous women among victims of FGM than those who have not gone through the exercise. I think it's all brainwashing,'' he argues.