Moolaade is a 2004 film directed by Ousmane Sembene.
It is set in a rural village in Burkina Faso, a place without electricity or running water where the people live in clay huts. One day, four terrified girls arrive at the gate of a woman named Colle. The girls, all of whom are pre-teens, were about to be subjected to female genital mutilation
, or as the villagers call it, "purification". In this horrifying custom, women are forcibly subjected to a crude surgical procedure in which much of their genitalia is cut off. The practice is not done by doctors but by women of the village (who are called "salindara"), without anesthetic. The surgery sometimes kills the girls who undergo it, or leaves them maimed, and even if victims recover they are usually left unable to derive pleasure from sexual intercourse.
Colle is one of those victims. She was left unable to achieve orgasm, and she suffered two miscarriages due to damage done to her reproductive organs. She has since refused to allow her daughter Amasatou, now a teenager of marriageable age, to be purified. When the girls arrive Colle instantly agrees to give give them sanctuary. This becomes the start of a confrontation with Colle's determination to protect the girls of the village collides with the patriarchy (including Colle's husband Cire) and its determination to keep women in subservient roles.
Tropes:
- Appeal to Tradition: The stated reasons for this horrific custom are that 1) it's always been done this way, 2) Islam requires it, and 3) no man will marry a woman who hasn't been "purified". Reason #2 is exposed as a lie, and Ibrahim shows #3 to be wrong when he accepts Amasatou as his bride.
- Badass Boast: Colle delivers one hell of a warning when her brother-in-law Amath, leader of the men of the village, threatens her. It's even better because she screams it at him in front of the whole town.Colle: But if you set your hand on me I, Colle Ardo, will set the village in fire and drown it in blood!
- Balanced Harem: The village practices polygamy, which is legal in some parts of the Muslim world. Colle is Cire's second wife, of three total. Cire's overbearing brother Amath says he got Cire a more mild-mannered third wife in order to counterbalance Colle's assertiveness.
- Book Burning: With radios, but the same principle. The men of the village believe that the women are getting dangerous ideas and acting far too independent, and they blame the transistor radios that the women like to listen to. So on the chief's orders the men confiscate all the radios in the town, pile them together, and burn them. This backfires, as losing their radios helps drive the women of the town into Colle's camp.
- Call-Back: Ibrahima reveals that he supports the women against the men, including his own father the chief. Ibrahima tells his father that burning the radios is pointless, that you can't keep out progress and the world. The very last shot of the movie shows that someone has raised a television antenna.
- Driven to Suicide: Four girls who escaped the ceremony found shelter with Colle but two others fled the village, supposedly for the city. Eventually the village finds out that the two girls drowned themselves in a well.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Ibrahima—tall, handsome, dressed in a European-style suit and tie—makes quite an impression on the women of the village. Some of the married ladies gossip about how handsome he is and how they'd like to marry him if they were younger.
- Everyone Has Standards: Mercenaire is a womanizer, cheat, and is implied to have a dark past in the UN. He is still horrified by the whipping of Colle and puts a stop to it.
- Before that he call Ibrahim, his uncle, and his father pedophiles for the formers near marriage to Hamsatou a 11 year old.
- Fan Disservice: Colle naked in bed with her husband, in a disturbing scene where he basically rides her like a horse, while she derives no pleasure from intercourse, having been mutilated.
- Flashback:
- A flashback shows young Colle being mutilated. This then cuts to another flashback with an older Colle having joyless, unpleasant sex with her husband.
- As Salba weeps with grief, a flashback shows how she lured her daughter Diattou out of Colle's compound, and then took her, screaming, to be mutilated. Diattou died.
- Imagine Spot: The salindara are terrifying enough as it is, with their ceremonial red cloaks, but characters sometimes visualize them as wearing hoods and masks as if they're going to perform a human sacrifice.
- Karma Houdini: Apparently no one is too concerned about bringing Mercenarie's murderers to justice.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: One of the rare bits of comic relief in this film is the one guy, apparently a sort of counselor to the village chief, who greets the chief's son Ibrahima when Ibrahima comes home after being educated in France. The counselor/courtier/butt-kisser follows along behind Ibrahima as the latter greets people, saying stuff like "He is tall, strong, and handsome as the rising sun!"
- Replacement Goldfish: Salba is weeping, rocking back and forth, hysterical with grief after her daughter Diattou died following her mutilation. Another woman of the village gives her baby over to Salba to raise as her own.
- Seeking Sanctuary: The village has a custom of "moolaade", in which one may enter a person's home and ask for sanctuary, and the homeowner may invoke "moolaade". Moolaade renders the homeowner's dwelling a place of sanctuary which none may violate. This is why most of the village exerts tremendous pressure on Colle to withdraw the invocation of moolaade, but no one dares to enter her family's home and take the girls by force.
- A Taste of the Lash: The turning point of the film comes when Cire, who is embarrassed by his wife's determination, has lost face with the men of the village, and is being goaded by his brother Amath, flogs his wife. Colle stands there and takes it while he whips her and demands that she revoke her offer of moolaade. This winds up triggering a mass rebellion of the women of the village in which they refuse to submit their daughters to purification ever again. (Cire for his part realizes his mistakes and supports his wife in the end.)
- Title Drop: The village's custom of "moolaade" or sanctuary is often mentioned.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Mercenarie the peddler is the one who eventually brings a stop to Cire's whipping of Colle, walking over and snatching the whip. This leads to a torch-wielding mob following Mercenarie on his way out of town that night and murdering him.
