An African culture clash

The fact that this is a film about female circumcision in Africa may put off many. But there is nothing in it to make the tender look away. While Ousmane Sembene's story is out to shock, it doesn't do so visually. And the 82-year-old director, often termed the father of African cinema, has reserved one of his best efforts for the autumn of his career.

Moolaadé is set in a Muslim village deep in the countryside, where tradition and modernity clash, with devastating results. Sembene, an avowed Marxist, is far too shrewd to suggest that everything old is bad and everything new good. That's the strength of his polemic: it doesn't tip over the edge.

The village is not characterised as particularly backward: it is not dirt poor, its inhabitants live well. But the time has come for " purification" and several of the girls have run away. Our heroine is the flamboyant Mama Collé (Fatoumata Coulibaly), who has already refused to have her daughter circumcised, and who takes in four of the girls. She gives them sanctuary (moolaadé) by stringing a cord across the entrance to her courtyard to conjure a protective spirit.

The moolaadé should last a month. One of the elders, after eyeing up the girls who will be married soon after they are "cut", comments that a month is a long time to keep an erection. How Mama Collé thwarts their efforts - even when the women of the village have their radios taken away, and thus their best contact with the outside world - forms the basis of the drama.

Sembene has never been much of a stylist, though the colourful scene is well shot by Dominique Gentil, his regular cinematographer. He does know how to tell a story and is never frightened of annoying the authorities, who often denigrate his work. In this case, they are gingerly supporting him, as surely women everywhere mus t . Moolaadé is a good film but, above all, a necessary and pertinent one.

Moolaade
Cert: 15