More from the movie corner of Graziella: Faat Kiné
With this week’s film we turn to the Senegalese writer and director Ousmane Sembene, the “father of African film.” Sembene started out as a socially conscious novelist, but slowly moved onto filmmaking on account of cinema’s wider reach. Indeed, all of his films have tackled complex social issues such as the heritage of colonialism, the flaws and failures of the new African middle classes, and the strength of African women. It is this latter theme that propels his 2000 film Faat Kiné, a ’serious comedy’ which, through its titular character, renders an entertaining and thought-provoking slice of modern life in urban Senegal. While ridiculing gendered oppression as well as the traditionalists’ notions of family and marriage, Faat Kiné insists on the warmth of Kiné’s familial love and thus has us hoping for a better future. Humour and optimism: don’t we need it.
Watch Faat Kiné on Kanopy here.
