Borom Sarret
opens to the stark emptiness of a black screen, evocatively filled
by the sound of a solemn, mystical tribal chant incanted amid the
asynchrony of a blunt, rhythmic beat. The darkness subsequently
reveals a high contrast, daylight shot of the impoverished native
quarters, cutting to a shot of the supplicant (Ly Abdoulaye) praying
for benediction in the foreground with his wife silently toiling in
the background, as the pair assiduously perform their disparate (and
intrinsically revelatory) rituals at the break of dawn. Retrieving
his family's sole possession - the horse Albourah - from a clearing,
the unnamed man then leaves to fetch his wooden cart in order to earn
a paltry income as a borom sarret, (a derivative of the French term
bonhomme charret), a horse-cart driver for hire operating
around the native quarters of Dakar, often picking up equally
destitute passengers who can only offer an indebted (and indefinite)
promise of payment or a wordless, ambiguous handshake in lieu of the
fare. Nevertheless, the day seemingly turns auspicious as actual
paying customers begin to hire his services - an overloaded delivery
of construction concrete blocks and an expectant couple hurrying to
the hospital for the birth of their child - begin to replace the
destitute early morning commuters (and presumptuous hitchhikers)
catching a free ride to the main town square. With earned money in
hand, he decides to stop at an intersection in order to enjoy the
idyllic morning, eat his meager kola nut lunch, and tend to a
persistently squeaking wheel on his cart before being distracted
by the uplifting voice of a traditional singer performing on the
street. The singer's ancient tales enhearten the borom sarret,
evoking images of his ancestral family's nobility and former
glory, and in an act of impulsive and negligent pride,
magnanimously hands over his entire earnings to the charismatic
singer. Now running out of time and anxious to recuperate his
lost income, the desperate borom sarret begins to accept a
series of desperate and dubious passengers, and soon finds
himself driving his outmoded, derelict cart into the modernized
- and forbidden - hillside colonial-era community appropriately
called the Heights.
Marking
the cinematic debut of Senegalese novelist and Moscow-trained filmmaker
Ousmane Sembene - and also representing the earliest film directed by
an indigenous filmmaker in sub-Sahara Africa - Borom Sarret is a
spare and distilled, yet lucid, innovative, and socially incisive portrait
of poverty, marginalization, servility, and exploitation. Filming in high
contrast black and white and implementing an asynchronous soundtrack and
narrative voice-over (in order to work around equipment limitation),
Sembene creates an implicit dichotomy between words and images - between
a disenfranchised person's seemingly assertive thoughts and his contradictory,
compliant actions - that illustrate the ingrained - and largely self-perpetuated
- cultural behavior among the poor and working class that continue to
foster social stratification even under the egalitarian ideals of the
nation's post-colonial, native sovereignty. Sembene further conveys
socio-economic polarization through visually recurring point-of-view
shots taken from the exaggerated perspective of an acute angled camera
that figuratively reflect class disparity: the disfigured beggar's
humble plea for alms as the lazing borom sarret feigns unawareness;
the peripheral activity of a crouching shoeshine boy who helplessly
allows a customer to leave without paying (as the singer panders to
the gullible borom sarret on the street corner); the defeated image
of the borom sarret bowing down to reclaim a souvenir medal as the
police officer deliberately steps on the article while issuing a ticket.
It is this dysfunctional and inextricable entanglement between
covetousness and idle ambition, condescension and self-pity, braggadocio
and moral defeatism that is ultimately reflected in the transitional
shots of the iconic, towering edifice that looms over the road leading
away from the native quarters - a delusive symbol of unity and exclusion,
self-authority and corruption, empowerment and emasculation.
A
successful, middle-aged businessman named El Hadj Abdoukader Beye
(Thierno Leye) has reached the pinnacle of the economic elite by participating
in a native revolt against colonialist authorities and, along with
his colleagues, seized control of the chamber of commerce. Despite
the newly convened commerce board's altruistic declarations for establishing
compassionate socialism, rampant corruption and abuse of power become
immediately apparent as the board members are individual handed money-laden
briefcases by an inscrutable and reticent Western businessman. Beye
uses the jovial atmosphere to remind the board that his marriage ceremony
to his third, and significantly younger co-wife, Ngone (Dieynaba Niang),
is already in progress (ironically, despite his absence) and extends
an invitation for the afternoon wedding reception at his recently
purchased third home. On the way to the reception, Beye stops by the
home of his first wife, Adja (Seune Samb), in order to prepare for
the wedding festivities, and encounters his independent and outspoken
university-aged daughter, Rama (Miriam Niang), who expresses her disapproval
for her father's third marriage by encouraging her mother to seek
a divorce. Beye attempts to justify his actions by appealing to her
sense of cultural pride, hypocritically commenting that the practice
of polygamy was an ancestral religious practice even before the appearance
of colonialists. In order to keep peace within the family and maintain
a cordial, social appearance, Adja agrees to accompany Beye along
with his second wife, Oumi (Younouss Seye), to the wedding reception,
where the two women soon find themselves awkwardly out of place in
their co-wife's new marital home, and eager for an expedient excuse
to leave. Meanwhile, despite his insistence on their non-necessity,
Beye is encouraged by his friends to consume superstitious concoctions
in order to ensure a successful wedding night. However, on the following
morning, his anxious and interfering new mother-in-law pays a visit
only to find that Beye was unable to consummate the marriage. Convinced
that his affliction was caused by an unidentified person's xala
(curse of sexual impotence), Beye abandons everything in an obsessive
search for a cure.
Ousmane Sembene presents a subversive, scathingly funny, and incisive
satire on the decadence and hypocrisy of the post-colonial upper class
in Xala. Similar to Luis Buñuel's
wry and searing indictment of the bourgeoisie in films such as The
Exterminating Angel and The
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Sembene employs sardonic humor,
narrative exaggeration, and surrealism to underscore the deliberate
and self-imposed segregation and stratification of social classes,
and the assumption of colonialist elitism by the emerging native upper
class. The board's adoption of French as the official language for
conducting national affairs (instead of the native Wolof), Beye's
refusal of his mother-in-law's request to perform a traditional wedding
day ritual (despite his earlier citation of native customs in rationalizing
his polygamy), and his arrogant boast of importing all of his goods
from Europe (including his favorite beverage), all reflect the social
elite's emulation of Western ideals at the expense of cultural legacy,
nationalism, and mutual interdependence in the rebuilding and economic
vitality of post-colonial Senegal. Inevitably, it is the consuming
universal infection of greed, power, narcissism, and social apathy
that proves to be the source of Beye's humiliating and incurable affliction.
Marking
the cinematic debut of Senegalese novelist and Moscow-trained filmmaker
Ousmane Sembene - and also representing the earliest film directed by
an indigenous filmmaker in sub-Sahara Africa - 
A
successful, middle-aged businessman named El Hadj Abdoukader Beye
(Thierno Leye) has reached the pinnacle of the economic elite by participating
in a native revolt against colonialist authorities and, along with
his colleagues, seized control of the chamber of commerce. Despite
the newly convened commerce board's altruistic declarations for establishing
compassionate socialism, rampant corruption and abuse of power become
immediately apparent as the board members are individual handed money-laden
briefcases by an inscrutable and reticent Western businessman. Beye
uses the jovial atmosphere to remind the board that his marriage ceremony
to his third, and significantly younger co-wife, Ngone (Dieynaba Niang),
is already in progress (ironically, despite his absence) and extends
an invitation for the afternoon wedding reception at his recently
purchased third home. On the way to the reception, Beye stops by the
home of his first wife, Adja (Seune Samb), in order to prepare for
the wedding festivities, and encounters his independent and outspoken
university-aged daughter, Rama (Miriam Niang), who expresses her disapproval
for her father's third marriage by encouraging her mother to seek
a divorce. Beye attempts to justify his actions by appealing to her
sense of cultural pride, hypocritically commenting that the practice
of polygamy was an ancestral religious practice even before the appearance
of colonialists. In order to keep peace within the family and maintain
a cordial, social appearance, Adja agrees to accompany Beye along
with his second wife, Oumi (Younouss Seye), to the wedding reception,
where the two women soon find themselves awkwardly out of place in
their co-wife's new marital home, and eager for an expedient excuse
to leave. Meanwhile, despite his insistence on their non-necessity,
Beye is encouraged by his friends to consume superstitious concoctions
in order to ensure a successful wedding night. However, on the following
morning, his anxious and interfering new mother-in-law pays a visit
only to find that Beye was unable to consummate the marriage. Convinced
that his affliction was caused by an unidentified person's xala
(curse of sexual impotence), Beye abandons everything in an obsessive
search for a cure.