Mandabi means money order, and when a man gets a money order from his nephew, he spends the rest of the movie jumping through bureaucratic hoops to try and cash it. Ousmane Sembene, the father of African cinema, directed it, and like all of his films, a deceptively simple, casual low key day explodes into something that turns his world upside down.
I know nothing about Senegal, but Mandabi paints a portrait of a man born to and brought up in a smaller community now living at a cross roads-culturally it retains the familiarity of a small community, but none of the benefits as it has adopted the modern ways of the colonizers and big city ways to exploit the ignorance of the main character who is not prepared for this life. Most people descend upon him like vultures, but some make out better than others. Will this man be left with anything?
Mandabi is like a horror movie for me. Trigger warning for anyone who has or whose parents have ever used a check-cashing place. It was the tensest ninety minutes of movie watching of my life, and earlier I had watched Sembene’s Camp de Thiaroye, which culminates in a massacre of World War II West African veterans. I can honestly say that my entire life is devoted to avoiding debt, having proper photo identification, having access to the best financial institutions and having a home. There is nothing more terrifying than people not believing whom you are and not being able to prove it due to circumstances completely out of your control. I know that most people may not be able to relate to this man’s plight, but as annoying as he was—and he was very annoying—I would not wish his journey on anybody, and it happens to more people than you think even if you were born in this country. It was the last thing that I watched that night, and I was just stunned at what a huge mistake I made, but not because it wasn’t good, but because it dredged up so many awful memories. Sembene can make a viewer empathize with anyone and feel that fictional character’s struggles as if they were your own (because real talk they were…but for the grace of God go I).
I have read some people describe Mandabi as a comedy. Do not trust those people with your loved ones or precious belongings. If you decide to watch Mandabi and are like me, unfamiliar with Sembene’s films, which are incredibly hard to find, or Sengelese culture, I would recommend that you watch Moolaade first to get a sense of the life that the main character was supposed to be living to understand how dangerously out of step he was with his time and place. It isn’t that he is innately wrong about all of the life choices that he makes (for instance, he chooses to be generous in spite of his financial circumstances) though he is wrong about quite a bit, but that just like any biological organism, he is unable to adapt to the rapid evolution caused by man-made climate change except that his climate climate is international socioeconimic and political, he is unable to adapt and recognize the change in his circumstances. He isn’t the only one as evidenced by the people who accompany on his disillusioning journey hoping to benefit from his change in fortunes. He doesn’t suffer because he is wrong about his view on women or standing in the community. He suffers because he was born under different conditions that he could not control such as not needing a birth certificate, knowing his birthday or getting an education when he was young so he could know how to read.
Mandabi’s most harrowing indictment is the disproportionate lack of recourse for wrongdoing and consequences that only he must bear. The bureaucracy that makes his life difficult does nothing to protect him. The only righteous person in this film is the mailman. He is the one part of government and society that functions as designed without requiring graft or trying to exploit people. This movie depicts a world with no hopes of survival. Hard, honest work is not rewarded or available.
Sembene loves to end his films with a calm before the storm then culminates in a call to action. In Mandabi, he uses the mailman to remind this man and his family, specifically his two wives, that despite their hardships, they have power. It is true because his immediate family consists of ten people—two wives and seven children, and just one person can change the world, but how? The main character may be brought low, but he is wiser, and some of his values were right. His wives knew the deal from the beginning of the film, and they are empowered by this call to action, not just beneath the rule of this man. They will teach their children. If they can balance their values with experience and actively work to protect others from the abuses that they experienced and try to effect change in their government to bring the village to the city, maybe things will get better.
Do I actually think that this living, breathing mark is capable of doing better? I think that he can if he listens to his wives and continues to eschew the false sense of security and friendship that made him believe that as a man, he was innately at the top of the food chain and not capable of being exploited like he does his wives. I also kept thinking of how these women’s families encouraged them to marry him and probably arranged it. He was considered a catch at some point yet they seem more savvy than he does and hold none of the decision making power. They ultimately defer to him and his bad choices. The seeds of a dysfunctional society existed long before the colonizer introduced his values if there was a world that would be less harmful psychologically and financially to this family, but would still cultivate a dynamic in which a fool leads the household. (Presidon’t) So unlike Sembene, I don’t have hope for anyone in this film. The demon of misogyny knows no borders, all cultures and religions.
Mandabi is an amazing film, but I can hardly recommend it considering that I was triggered the entire time that I watched it. Just thinking about the movie stresses me out. If this movie does not sound terror inducing to you, then definitely see it as a master class in slow boiling a frog and subtlety ratchet up the tension where you may have thought none even existed. Most movies nowadays start at a ten and have nowhere to go, but Sembene’s ability to take the prosaic and reveal the everyday horrors of modern life.