Product Details

• Actors: Makhouredia Gueye, Ynousse N'Diaye, Isseu Niang, Serigne N'Diayes, Serigne Sow
• Directors: Ousmane Sembene
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: French, Wolof
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: New Yorker Video
• DVD Release Date: May 31, 2005
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009ETCPG
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #98,065 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Mandabi" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Like many men in late-1960s Dakar, Ibrahima Dieng (Makhouredia Gueye) has been without a job for years. With nine mouths to feed--two wives and seven children--he could use a break. One day, he receives a letter from his nephew Abdou in Paris. Enclosed is a mandabi, or money order, for 25,000 francs. The funds are to be divided between several family members. Trying to cash it, however, quickly becomes a comedy of errors. First, Dieng needs to secure an identity card, then a birth certificate, and so forth (the fact that he can't read certainly doesn't help). Meanwhile, word has been spreading about his good fortune and everyone wants a piece. Ousmane Sembene's follow-up to Black Girl--and first in the Wolof dialect--uses humor to depict the plight of a proud and simple man caught between two worlds, an ineffectual colonial past and a corrupt bureaucratic present. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

Sembene's second feature unlocked for the first time the complex daily world of modern Africa. This story of a man who receives a money order and, in his attempts to cash it, encounters an intimidating barrage of Third World bureaucracy, becomes a witty, masterful portrait of an ancient civilization in the throes of change.

Receiving the dubious windfall at first seems a blessing to Ibrahima Dieng, who lives with his two wives and their seven children. However, as the tale unfolds, the seemingly easy transaction threatens to destroy the traditional fabric of his life. Quickly, the whole neighborhood becomes aware of it, the wives buy provisions on credit, their parents ask for a share and people try to extort him for money - all the while, his attempts to cash the piece of paper turn futile.

MANDABI is a warm, subtle comedy with a series of visual revelations about a civilization struggling to recapture its own rich heritage after a century of colonial corruption.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A stinging satire of life in 1960s Senegal, September 27, 2006

By	Yaakov Ben Shalom - See all my reviews

"Mandabi" provides a window in the life and the daily struggles of ordinarily people in Senegal in the years after gaining independence. And it was a hard life.

"Mandabi" is not really a comedy, except in the sense of a comedy of errors or a very dark comedy. It is the heartbreaking story of Ibrahima, a poor, naive man who thinks he has gotten a break when his nephew sends him a money order from Paris, but . . .
Ibrahima can't cash the money order without an ID card.
He can't get an ID card without a birth certificate.
He can't get a birth certificate because he doesn't know his exact birth information.
He struggles to find a solution to his problem, but his solutions make his problem worse.

Ibrahima can't read and doesn't speak French, so he must rely on Westernized or educated Senegalese to help him. But they take advantage of his naivete and ignorance of the system to rob him of the little money he has. Meanwhile, as word of his new-found fortune spreads around his poor neighborhood, everyone he knows comes asking for money, and it is hard for him to say "no."

The product description says that the film is "about a civilization struggling to recapture its own rich heritage after a century of colonial corruption." This is not really an accurate description of the movie. It is more about the venality, corruption, difficulty, and meanness of life in Senegal in the 1960s.

If there are notable flaws with the movie, they are its pacing and the subtitles. The movie is slow, sometimes very slow. Scenes of action and dialogue are separated by long, ruminative camera shots accompanied by kora music. But a bored viewer can easily fast-forward through those. Also, the subtitles are quite old and done in narrow, white typeface, making them hard to read at times.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seminal Work of African Cinema, June 11, 2007

By	directions "musicfan" - See all my reviews

This is the best film and one of the most important by Ousmane Sembene, who was basically Africa's first film maker and still the most influential. Though its been described as a comedy, the symbolism of the money order that the protangonist first sees as a bounty and then an albatross hanging over his neck is the burden of western society at a time when African nations were declaring their independence. Thus the complications he runs into in trying to cash the money order which lead to his eventual downfall could be described as Kafka-esque but have a unique character that fits into local culture and folklore (which would be further explored on Xala, one of his other great films). Given that many films about Africa at the time took on a condescending manner or misunderstood the whole culture entirely, it is fascinating to see the beginnings of self expression and a mouthpiece for the cinema of the people without descending to the didactic propoganda of other left wing cinema.

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Critique of Neocolonial Senegal, June 3, 2008

By	East Coast Transplant "moviejunkie" (Southern California) - See all my reviews

Ousmane Sembene, pivotal figure in West African cinema, draws a scathing and ironic portrait of bureaucracy and everyday life in post-independence Dakar, Senegal. He weaves a story of international labor migration (a street sweeper from Senegal in Paris), gender relations in polygyny, the relations between urban and rural relatives, brothers and sisters, and ordinary people with a bloated and corrupt cogernment bureaucracy -- all surrounding the innocent attempt by the street sweeper to send his mother (via his urban uncle in Dakar) a remittance in the form of a money order. Fabulous film: not to be missed!