Netflixed: Xala

A high-ranking official loses the respect of the community in Ousmane Sembene’s comedy. Set in a newly independent Senegal, the story centers on influential official El Hadji, who decides to take advantage of the rampant corruption by using government funds to marry his third wife. But on his wedding night, El Hadji discovers he has xala, the curse of impotence. With his virility in question, he tries a number of ridiculous and bizarre cures. [Netflix Xala]

Not sure how I heard of this 1975 film, but it looks interesting.

Roger Ebert wrote of it:

The white members of the local chamber of commerce have been ordered out of office, and now African businessmen take their places. But one of the whites returns to place attache cases in front of each seat. The Africans open the cases and nod solemnly, impressed by the neat stacks of bribe money inside. The old order has been replaced by the new, but it’s business as usual.

So begins “Xala,” the newest and most disturbing film by the Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene. His story follows the decline and fall of one of the African businessmen, who sells rice on the black market to finance the addition of a third wife to his family. But in a larger sense, Sembene also is commenting on the failures of African capitalism and on the legacy of corruption inherited from colonial times.

This is new ground for Sembene, who is the best of the handful of African film directors.

[Click to continue Xala :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews]

While Richard Eder of the New York Times wrote:

Dancing and jubilation in the seaside African capital, where coconut-icing skyscrapers loom over the shanties, the trees are gray with dust and the bougainvillea is like a terminal illness.

Africans in bright-colored togas move into the big building in the main square, order out the white men and remove the busts of Napoleon. Next scene: the Africans, in expensive European suits, sit around the table, the white men stand importantly behind as “advisers” and pass them briefcases stuffed with money, the black soldiers push back black crowds and rid the streets of unsightly beggars.

In a way, therefore, Osmane Sembene’s cutting, radiant and hilarious film “Xala,” … is “Animal Farm” applied to Africa independence.

It is part fable and part satire, but it is much more: with the greatest fineness and delicacy, Mr. Sembene, the Senegalese writer and director who made this picture, has set out a portrait of the complex and conflicting mesh of traditions, aspirations and frustrations of a culture knocked askew by colonialism and distorting itself anew while climbing out.

[Click to continue Movie Review – Xala – Film Festival: Cutting, Radiant ‘Xala’ – NYTimes.com]