Could see how watching this in a film studies class, or in conjunction with reading about Sembene (or even his story that spawned this) would make for a completely different experience.

Of the three films by him I've seen so far, "Borom Sarret" was the one that resonated the most. This film I think takes a similar tack, but the main character here is so hapless, that it feels his doomed fate like his domed pate, are inherent in his character. The wagon master in that short just seemed noble and just, and ends up just royally screwed.

Here good fortune on paper turns to bad luck in person, and everyone seems to be on the scam. The imam and his posse, the double-dipping beggar lady on the street, the wives, the photographer. And as in "Borom" ultimately the wealthy just screw over the impoverished while making a grand false gesture on par with grand larceny. I could see it as satire (as the poster indicates),but the situation came across so dire it just made me think of people on ever continent caught in debt spirals.

The relationship of the wives (count 'em two) to the agonizing protagonist is not really explored but fascinating to me, never mind the seven children. It almost begs its own very different film, but this film is more about the tiers of people on the take. And the crazy within bureaucracy. An idea that is not so foreign as the setting for this film. Sadly...

A Senegal tale of societal male dominance & how money changes people. Our lead character to his wives as they tend to his every comfort, "I am the husband, only I decide what to do." "Good wives consult their husband before making any decisions." Again, another example of female status/value somewhere below that of cattle.

Too often found in Islamic or poorly educated populations.

In order to truly appreciate Mandabi one must first know a little something about director Ousmane Sembene. One can trace the burgeoning success of West African cinema to Sembene's body of work which aimed to tell stories that were uniquely African. Without the international success of Black Girl (1966) and Xala (1975),the work of fellow Senegalese Djibril Diop Mambety and Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cisse may have never been discovered. At first, Sembene was also an accomplished anti-colonialist writer who's concern for social change led to a directing career to reach a wider audience.

Mandabi is partially based on Sembene's short story "The Money- Order". In it an illiterate, middle-aged man attempts to cash a money-order sent by a family member who has emigrated to Paris. Due to the newly independent country's rapidly spreading corruption, a burgeoning criminal underclass, and the general incompetence of government officials, Ibrahim (Gueye) struggles to accomplish what is otherwise a simple goal.

Senegal circa 1968 was administered by the largely socialist government of President Leopold Senghor. Senghor favored close ties with former colonialist France which ran counter to long brewing resentment and popular thought among other African nations who viewed France, Britain, Belgium et al. as oppressors. Underneath the film's strong sense of irony and absurdity you get the sense that the bureaucracy (and thus the government) that controls the fate of Ibrahim is completely foreign and unnaturally weak. It operates as a tool of submission and dehumanization to someone like Ibrahim who is un-wanting or unwilling to "modernize" yet for his nephew (Diouf) and the local shop keeper (Ture) whom represent a new generation easily manages to circumvent the bureaucracy in favor of a black market. This theme is further mirrored in Sembene's satirical zenith of El Hadji (Thierno Leye) impotence in the film Xala.

Yet in Mandabi, the satire, while more subdued than Xala feels more damning towards colonization as a political system and the authoritarianism of post-colonial African society. Ibrahim hopes familial ties and a few honest favors will get him what he wants but due in-part by traditionalism mesh-mashing with multiple systems of oppression, Ibrahim can only count on his first wife's (N'Diaye) constant berating.

Ibrahim's constant struggle mirrors that of the protagonist in Bicycle Thieves (1948). Yet while that film's neo-realist flair was partially the result of war, Mandabi endeavors amid a maze of post- colonial chaos with the new generation jockeying for absolute power. Dark, frustrating and heartbreaking Mandabi showcases a story and by extension a country where authority is an unnatural corruption and only rascals win.