Voice of the Voiceless: Review of Madame Brouette by Moussa Sene Absa

Reviewer: Dr. Peter Wuteh Vakunta 

 Madame Brouette is a movie by Moussa Sene Absa, a Senegalese citizen. It came out in 2002. The main characters are Mati; Naago; Ndèye; and Ndaxte. In 2003 the movie won 3 awards, namely the Special Jury Prize at the Paris Film Festival, the Poitou Charentes Award at the Ouagadougou Panafrican Film and Television Festival, and a silver award in Berlin for best musical film. Madame Brouette is a veritable tour de force in which the cinematographer adopts the position of the African griot[i] as he speaks for the voiceless. Notice that griots are the life blood of the society depicted in this film.

They are custodians of communal wisdom who live to teach the next generation. They observe events and people in society. In this movie, the chorus is played by griots, those who transmit oral traditions.

Anchored on the double theme of sexuality and violence, Madame Brouette depicts the travails of the African woman in a male dominated society. This multi-faceted film introduces viewers to the world of police corruption, prostitution, the underworld, influence peddling, and abuse of power in the Senegalese society. Naago, the male protoganist, is a prototype of the African policeman—uncouth, mindless, corrupt, prone to dereliction of duty, and sexual abuse. The issue that captivates the viewer’s attention in this film is the stoicism of the female protagonist, Mati. Single mother, she toils continually by selling an array of goods which she transports to the nearby market in a wheelbarrow. On this count, she earns the epithet "Madame Brouette."[ii] Having spurned many men following her divorce with an abusive husband, Mati persuades her best friend, Ndaxte, to also divorce her irresponsible husband.  Interestingly, Mati's negative attitude toward men soon changes when she meets a slick-talking policeman, Naago, with whom she falls in love instantly. Sadly enough, Naago is no better than her previous husband.  Mati grows increasingly aware of Naago's corrupt wheeling and dealing, and his constant philandering. As the relationship between Naago and Mati turns sour, Mati is forced to take matters into her own hands. Desperate for the wherewithal with which to feed herself and daughter she opts for the risky business of contraband trade but winds up opening a café which she runs for a living. She is a woman of steel who fights back at opportune moments. Denounced by an uneducated father who does not seem to comprehend the frustrations of his daughter in a patriarchal society, Mati forges ahead relentlessly.

Madame Brouette adumbrates the thorny issue of freedom in a society where abuse of human rights is common currency. Focusing on the plight of poor Senegalese women, the film-maker recreates the story of one woman who has decided to fight to the bitter end. The denouement of the movie is telling. In the last scene, Mati sets free a caged partridge, metonymy for the emancipation of downtrodden women in the society in which she lives. The film is comic, sensitive, and culturally rich.  Absa accomplishes this mammoth task while smiling tongue in cheek.  His cynicism is contagious throughout the film. So too is his sense of humor.

Of the many issues broached in this movie, the thorniest is that of gender inequality. I was lucky enough to stumble on an interview granted by Absa in 2002. In that interview he observes, “In my society, women do not enjoy much respect. They don’t really have a place and their role is often limited to that of producing babies. They endure abuse and humiliation. Often they cannot divorce because they are financially dependent. When they grow older and their bodies sag, when the man thinks they’ve made enough babies, he finds a second wife, younger, a virgin, and he begins another family with this newcomer! [iii] In this society, giving a girl child’s hand in marriage is viewed as an investment. Consequently, when abuses occur and the women attempt to divorce there is a metaphor that is often thrust at them. That same metaphor is used in this movie by Mati’s father. According to the old man, Mati’s girl friend, Ndaxte, has to go back to her crazy husband because, “Man and wife are like tongue and teeth. Sometimes the teeth bite the tongue, but still the tongue doesn’t try to leave the mouth. Its place is with the teeth.” In such a society, parents would rather send their daughters to work on the farm than send them to school. They would rather pay for them to learn how to cook and care for babies than buy them books. It goes without saying that the contemporary African woman has come a long way thanks to initiatives by feminists like Absa who affirms in the aforementioned interview, “For me the woman is sacred. I compare her to a partridge.”  There are Africans like Absa who believe women are special.

There’s a message in Absa's choice of colors in the film. Red symbolizes power; yellow is the color of happiness.  For this film-maker, every color has a signification. Madame Brouette is pink.  On the subject of colors, Absa has this to say:

Right from the start, we worked on this idea with the art director and the director of photography. I wanted to have the colors as faded as possible, while using the background as a sort of painting. In the end, creating a shot is like painting. I wanted to work with stains, yellow for the women, pink, khaki, brown, reddish earth colors, very faded, the colors of scrap metal, or bright blue in the snack bar, because we wanted to see the two women putting it on. The only color I never use is green.[iv]

Onomastics, or the art of naming, is also connotative in Madame Brouette. Names bear specific messages in this film. By way of example, ‘Mati’ is short for “Aminata”, a respected name in the Muslim culture given that the prophet’s mother used to be called by this name. Bear in mind that ‘Ndèye’ means ‘mother’ and the name ‘Samba’ is usually given to the second child. Children called ‘Ndèye’ and ‘Samba’are very much loved by their parents. Another instance of symbolism in the movie is the timing of the tragedy. “Taajaboon” is an old tradition in Senegal. It takes place during the “Tamxarit”, a time of abundance and prayer. During the celebration, men dress like women and women dress like men. There’s a lot of food. Kids go around singing, dancing and collecting gifts and money. It’s believed that angels come down and snatch away evil-doers. They don’t live to see the next season. Once the evil ones are gone, a new society can begin with a new generation.

In sum, Absa appeals to our collective consciences in Madame Brouette by astutely examining existential conundrums faced by men and women in contemporary African communities. The title of the film problematizes the status of the African woman. Through the technique of compounding, the cinematographer seems to dehumanize the African woman by objectifying her. She is synonymous with a wheelbarrow. At the same time, the wheelbarrow stands for the instrument that guarantees the liberation of Absa’s female protagonist, Mati.  

© Vakunta 2011

http://www.vakunta.blogspot.com

Notes

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[i] Member of a hereditary caste among the peoples of West Africa whose function is to keep an oral history of the tribe or village and to entertain with stories, poems, songs, dances, etc.

 

[ii]  The woman that pushes a wheelbarrow

[iii] “Interview with Moussa Sene Absa”. Retrieved  June 18, 2011 from http:// spot.pcc.edu/~mdembrow/absainterview.htm

[iv]  Interview, op cit.

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