Tableau Ferraille

Mousa Sene Absa | Senegal 1997 | 1h32m | 35mm | French and Wolof with English subtitles | 15

Tableau Ferraille tells the story of Daam (played by the Senegalese music superstar Ismael Lô), a European-trained and politically naive politician, who must choose between the two social paradigms represented by his two wives. His first wife, Gagnesiri, is a dignified village woman, dedicated to husband, family and community. Daam and Gagnesiri are incapable of conceiving a child, so Daam takes a second wife, Kiné, a beautiful, well-connected, western-educated woman, eager to marry an ambitious young politician.

The president and his corrupt cronies plan to use their connections with Daam to enrich themselves, and Daam's decision to take on a second wife plays right into the president's self-serving hands.

Like such past Senegalese masterpieces as Ousmane Sembene's Xala and Djibril Diop Mambety's Hyenas, Tableau Ferraille deplores the exploitation of the promise of true African independence by a corrupt post-colonial elite.