|
|
"Great African Films, Volume Two:
Tasuma / Sia, the Dream of the Python"
2003/2001
Directed by Kollo Daniel Sanou / Dani Kouyate
The second installment in this series of
award-winning films from Africa includes Kollo Sanou's Tasuma
(2003, 90 minutes, French and Jula with English subtitles), a comic look
at the impact of Western colonialism on Africa. Retired from the French
army, West African native Sogo waits patiently for his pension, which he
plans to use to build a grain mill for the women of his village. When the
money doesn't arrive, he and the villagers take matters into their own
hands. "Tasuma camouflages its razor-sharp indignation with warmth
and disarming grace" (Village Voice). Next is Dani Kouyate's Sia,
the Dream of the Python (2001, 96 minutes, Bambara with English
subtitles), a modern adaptation of a seventh-century African legend. A
poor village decides it must make a human sacrifice to a mystical snake
god to guarantee a better future. Sia, the most beautiful woman in the
village, is chosen for the ritual, but she runs away in revolt. "Delivers
a powerful commentary on how governments lie, no matter who runs them" (New
York Post).
186 minutes. |
 |