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Film
Review |
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Saaraba, directed by Amadou Saalum Seck, 86 minutes, Senegal,
1988. In Wolof and French with English subtitles.
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Saaraba tells the
absorbing story of a young man's painful homecoming. Returning to Senegal
after spending much of his youth in France,
Tamsir struggles to find himself and a sense of
place amid the competing demands of traditional culture, modernization,
western mass culture, and the legacy of French colonialism. The young generation's
search for personal identity gestures toward the broader challenge facing
many other young African nations: how can post-colonial Senegal
find itself and articulate its own sense of national
identity as an imagined community? The title of the film, which translates
as "utopia," is meant to question not only whether utopia is attainable,
but whether such a place can even be envisioned at this historical moment.
The film is an excellent vehicle for exploring these very issues regarding
post-colonial Africa in the world history classroom. |
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Tamsir returns to Dakar, Senegal
after spending seventeen years in Paris,
where he was educated under the sponsorship of his wealthy uncle. Upon leaving
the airport, Tamsir is confronted by images of poverty (beggars, shantytowns)
as well as wealth (the Mercedes that transports him to Dakar)
and Western investment (the new stadium built with Chinese money and the
international trade forum). Tamsir's
uncle offers him a good job in his company, but Tamsir is ambivalent. He
grew up in a small village far from the city and part of him wishes to return
to the old life. Tamsir's father, who still lives in the village, is a devout
Muslim who is dismayed to discover that Tamsir
no longer says his prayers. However, he is reassured that his son wishes
to return to the old life, since, in his words, "tradition
is identity." Nevertheless, he reminds his son, one must pay his debts.
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While Tamsir is visiting his home village, the local big man and
Member of Parliament addresses the villagers and promises them a new tourism
center, facilities for water supply, and a salt factory. A herder opposes
the plan, fearful that such improvements would destroy his pastoral way
of life. The village wise fool, Demba, asks whether
such a plan would draw him any closer to Saaraba,
or utopia. Another villager plays the traditional tune, "Saaraba",
on a stringed instrument, singing its lyric in the local dialect of Wolof.
Tamsir learns that Demba intends to fix his motorcycle and journey to Saaraba,
a place where he imagines that machines do all the work for men. Tamsir
cautions Demba that he has known this place, but it is the men who
do the work for machines. |
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During his stay in the village, Tamsir is
reintroduced to Lissa. They fall in love, but Lissa's parents accept instead an offer of marriage from the
M.P., who showers her family with expensive jewelry. Their word is final.
Tamsir learns that his sister is also frustrated by village
custom regarding marriage. She has fallen in love with a man who has been
educated as a doctor in Brussels,
but her parents refuse to approve the marriage because he is of the wrong
descent. Meanwhile, Tamsir's father falls seriously ill and can receive
proper medical attention only if Tamsir can transport him by cart to the
railway station, and by rail to Dakar.
Before Tamsir can even reach the rail station,
his father dies. His last words are a lament that one ultimately cannot
resist change and the ways of the new generation. Yet we're also reminded
of his earlier remark to Tamsir that Saaraba is
the paradise awaiting devout Muslims in death. |
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Upon returning to Dakar,
Tamsir learns that his uncle's company is responsible for producing the
salt factory plans proposed for his home village. It also soon becomes clear
that his uncle is embezzling funds intended as foreign aid. Red Cross milk
powder and German ambulances never reach their intended destination. Sidy,
Tamsir's cousin, is painfully aware of his father's corruption. He is critical
also of creeping Westernization but can see no viable alternative in his
own life. He retreats into the world of drugs--an escape from reality that
becomes his own version of saaraba. Tamsir sternly lectures Sidy about his
lack of maturity and direction, but eventually Tamsir meets an old friend
who also was educated in France
and is now living aimlessly in Dakar.
Together they smoke a joint and Tamsir rushes headlong into Sidy's confused,
chaotic world of drugs. Disheveled and weary, a disillusioned Tamsir walks
into his uncle's company and destroys the plans for the salt factory. Saaraba
for Tamsir cannot be a life of privilege and prosperity won by exploiting his own people. Before leaving Senegal
and starting over in France,
Sidy confronts his father in a letter with his obligations to society. He
admonishes his father that praying to Allah is not enough to be absolved
of one's sins. The uncle considers mending his ways but is soon tempted
again by corruption. |
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According to both village custom and Islamic
law, a woman should be a virgin when she marries. Although Tamsir had been
willing to honor what he considered an "outmoded" tradition, Lissa
came to him after her parents insisted on the marriage to the M.P. She hoped
that if she were no longer a virgin, the M.P. would change his mind about
marrying her. Lissa soon learns that she is pregnant
by Tamsir, much to the shame of her family. Yet
even now the M.P. will not let her go. The film reaches a climax during
village festivities marking the installation of the new facilities promised
by the M.P. The herder who opposed the plan is despairing because his herd
is dying from drought. Only at the last moment was his hand stayed from
stabbing his daughter, the local witch doctor's suggested method for inducing
rain. Demba's motorcycle is ready for the journey
to Saaraba, and at this point Tamsir
gamely agrees to join him. They ride to the top of the hill and stop while
a grinning Demba watches the road below. He has tampered with the brakes
or steering mechanism in the M.P.'s car. The resulting accident leaves the
M.P. paralyzed and in the care of the doctor who has returned from Brussels.
Demba and Tamsir take off on the motorbike, driving wildly. They lose control
and crash. In anger and frustration, Tamsir throws a rock at the damaged
bike. Demba becomes furious with Tamsir and nearly
tosses him over a cliff. (Yes, the movie has an actual "cliffhanger".) After sparing Tamsir,
Demba dies of his own injuries. His last words
announce that he is already in Saaraba and that
he should have known how close Saaraba was all
along. |
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The belated message of Saaraba
seems to be that rather than pinning our hopes on some indefinite, elusive
future or place, we should find meaning and fulfillment in the moment. Yet
whether this is possible for the young generation of post-colonial Senegal
buffeted by modernity, corruption, religion, and tradition is left deliberately
unresolved. |
7
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Steven
Goldberg
Oak Park River
Forest High School
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