Product Details

• Actors: Makhouredia Gueye, Dieynaba Niang, Dyelea Touré, Myriam Niang, Younouss Seye
• 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: 123 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009ETCP6
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #58,803 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Wealthy businessman and community leader El Hadji (Thierno Leye) has been known to take a bribe on occasion. He has two wives and has just taken a (much younger) third, when he succumbs to a xala, or curse, and is unable to consummate the marriage. In his search for a cure, Hadji first loses his standing, then his fortune. Even his wives start to abandon him. He has become impotent in every sense of the word. Based on his novel of the same name, Ousmane Sembene’s fourth film is unsparing in its critique of Senegalese men, like Hadji, who claim to be enemies of colonialism and defenders of "Africanity," yet insist on speaking French, consume only imported goods, and view the less fortunate as "human rubbish." As with Luis Buñuel before him, Sembene (Moolaadé) finds the "charm of the bourgeoisie" to be very "discreet" indeed in this devastating dark comedy. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description
This savagely funny satire portrays El Hadji, a prosperous, self-satisfied, politically crooked modern businessman who is struck down by the xala (pronounced "ha-la") - a curse rendering its victim impotent. While he chases after witch doctors and soothsayers on a frantic, often hilarious search for a cure, his impotence becomes a mirror of the powerlessness of young African nations over dependent on white technology.

Unable to consummate his third (polygamous) marriage, and neglecting his business affairs and political activities as he seeks a cure, his social stature is stripped away, leaving him shamed and humiliated. And while humorous, there is a sympathy in his downfall at the hands of others who are even more corrupt than he is.

XALA is a moving and comical look at a man caught up in the corruption of his country and the tribulations of a changing society.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Skewering of the Senegalese "businessman", December 11, 2005

By	LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" (Astoria, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This 1974 gem, by multi-talented filmmaker Ousmane Sembene, is a brutal attack on the enthusiastic appropriation by the Senegalese upper class of French colonialist culture and its dire consequences. Sembene not only wrote and directed the film; he also wrote the novel on which the film was based.

In it, El Hadji, the protagonist, is one of a number of the business and political elite of Dakar (capital of Senegal) who, at the film's opening, accepts a briefcase full of payoff money from the French, presumably to "encourage" continued French business development in the country after Senegal has won its independence. But while spouting homilites attesting to Senegal's independence as a true African state, these members of the elite speak in nothing but French and look down their noses at those who speak Wolof, the native language. Even, in El Hadji's case, his daughter from his first marriage.

He also decries the beggars in the streets, some of whom are disturbingly affected with serious malnutrition and physical conditions like spina bifida, and one of whom, as it turns out, is a relative of El Hadji's. The latter weds his third wife, much younger than he, but is then struck with the eponymous condition of the title, the xala, which is a curse rendering him impotent.

His second wife is furiously jealous of his third. His first wife is more patient. But perhaps the most vituperative of all his enemies are ultimately his "fellow" bribees, who, in one brilliant scene, attack him for his actions that are careless enough to prevent the others in this group from being able to reap more bribes and other corrupt sources of income. He lashes back at them with how tainted they all are, including him, and then suffers the consequences.

The ending of the film is the most brutal of all scenes in the film and will not be revealed here; it's stomach-churning. Along the way, El Hadji visits two different marabouts (Senegalese shamans) in an attempt to rid himself of the xala, and has as well a number of encounters with the various members of his family--wives, sons, daughters.

As noted in another review of this film on this website, Sembene likely saw and absorbed the films of Luis Bunuel; there's a similarity of jet black humor in the tone of the film redolent of the great Spanish filmmaker. Sembene beautifully captures Senegalese culture in all its aspects--from the ultra-snobby rich to the desperate poor, and a couple of layers in-between as well.

This is a great African film; definitely recommended.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Xala, August 23, 2005

By	John Farr "The Best Movies by Farr" - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Overlooked gem amusingly demonstrates polygamy isn't all it's cracked up to be. It also operates in darker vein as one man benefits from a corrupt government that is then, all too quick to turn against him. By turns hilarious and frightening, Xala is like nothing you've seen.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tough Love, June 4, 2005

By	khense "khense" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Ousmane Sembene is the Godfather of tough love. In "Xala" the likable "everyman" is only human. Finding himself immersed in easy money and asking no questions, he goes for the perks enjoyed by ancestral chieftans, throwing a big celebration to take a third wife two generations younger. However after he is dismissive of a prescribed ritual just prior to the wedding night, "Xala" the curse descends on him like falling dominoes. A love of people combined with mean spirited humor and a strong ending fire this storytelling into a timeless gem.