Senegal
Senegal
Films Domireew/ New Yorker films
Sembène, Ousmane (dir)
Sembène's 4th film and, perhaps, his funniest. Xala means "the curse" in Wolof. And who is cursed? That's El Hadji, the corrupt business man and government official, who is struck by impotency on the eve of the wedding to his third wife. In his desperation to be rid of xala, El Hadji opens the window overlooking the intersection where the worst parts of a traditional, colonial and a postcolonial Africa collide.

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