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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Probably the sharpest satire I have ever seen, 6 November 2000
10/10
Author: John Wayne from The Orchestra

Films like American Beauty are sharp, but Xala's theatrical style and unrelenting debasement of Senegalese society is worthy of far more Oscars than the frankly over-rated A.B.

Without the distraction of stars and tricky camera work, Xala is straight to the point, and makes no attempt to beautify or wax lyrical about their country in the midst of corruption and lies.

I recommend this film to someone with an open mind and a love of pure cinema.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Notes on Ousmane Sembene's XALA, 6 November 2007
8/10
Author: BottleGourdPlant from San Francisco, CA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The protagonist of XALA, El Hadji, is a government official in Senegal and the living embodiment of what colonization has done to a modern post-colonial mind with a frame of reference revolving around how a French official would manage Senegal. Failing to realize, sadly, the specific needs of his country, El Hadji is caught in a self-destructive mentality that forces him to ignore domestic issues and exploit the people in an eerily similar fashion reminiscent of his French predecessors.

Mother France is no longer running the show, yet El Hadji continues to act as if his country were a colony. The residual effects of colonialism emit from every corner of Senegal as the "free" government continues to conform to a standard that has long decomposed as the men in charge focus on personal, self-seeking pursuits. It is like one of those horribly sad factory farm chickens that are given growth hormones to make it get big really fast. Its legs have not quite developed to support the unnatural growth and eventually it dies of starvation because it cannot walk to the food and water. What is more, the people that do this to the chickens do not care of their suffering, but are looking only to make a profit. The Senegal depicted in XALA is a "developing" country, with the mentality of the first world riddled with acute egocentric sentiments that have nothing to do with politics but everything to do with social starvation.

El Hadji is black, just like his people, yet continues to oppress and forget them like the whites that set the standard years before. But this similarity in skin color will not offset the modes El Hadji feels is appropriate in exercising his dominance. The common people are viewed as undesirable garbage that should be sloughed aside and forgotten. El Hadji's refusal to speak the native Wolof is his last insult to his people for Wolof reminds him that he too is African, like the "garbage" outside. In order to serve the people, which should be the emphasis of his job, El Hadji must communicate with them in a way they understand (Wolof) but his self-hatred is so acute, he does not care to reach his people and communicate -- his wealth and position have blinded him. This absence of effective communication between the government and the people perpetuates confusion and neocolonialist sentiments revolving around the marginalization of the native people and the preservation of the colonizing country's dominance.

Exaberating the situation is El Hadji's overt willingness to cling onto so-called primitive and non-European traditions when they best fit him, satisfy his appetites, or fix a problem. Only for these brief, selfish interludes does El Hadji connect with his repressed past. As Frederick Ivor Case writes in 'Ontological discourse in Ousmane Sembene's Cinema' the Senegalese government depicted in XALA "rejects their own language, and value only those customs -- polygamy, for example -- that satisfy their need to dominate and indulge in themselves" (98). Doesn't El Hadji realize that French men (usually!) have one wife? What happened to his obsession with everything French? Further, due to his materialism and greed, a curse is put upon El Hadji rendering him impotent. Once again, solely for personal benefit, he "resorts" to African shamanistic traditions to reverse the curse. At the close of the film, El Hadji must undergo a humiliating ignominy at the hands of the forgotten townspeople, the very people he has subjugated in order to regain his manhood.

The treatment of El Hadji resonates in heightened overtones for the African audience that consumed the film. Francoise Pfaff notes in 'The Uniqueness of Ousmane Sembene's Cinema' that "XALA's theme of punishment of greed, selfishness, vanity, and waste is highly popular in African folktales, and so are topics of the lowly rebelling against the powerful" (17). A genius way to reach the masses and allow them to identify with his film, Sembene interweaves contemporary issues with familiar African themes to speak in a (cinematic) language people would readily understand. Such an audience would realize that El Hadji's impotence is representative of a certain refusal to "get up" and address pending needs through a lens that focuses on Senegal, not France.

At what cost could a country, tainted for so many years, break away from displaced truths and standards another country forced down its throat for a period of time that retrospectively seems like an eternity? What makes the neocolonialist model unique is the absence of a foreign, colonizing country and the subsistence of a previous foreign, colonizing country's ghost. The Senegalese government is confused by this ghost while the citizens wallow in ignorance, acceptance, and misery. It is a reverberating cycle that can only be broken when extreme reconstruction and rebirth is perused, not only by the government, but by the people. XALA's open-ended closure of the people spitting on El Hadji leaves the audience with a keen realization that power ultimately resides with the people. It is the people that can undo the "curse," the ghost, and bring things back into a place where their lives are not whitewashed with foreign culture and ideology.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
hilarious and stinging, 28 October 1999
10/10
Author: tRiVi8L

Sembene was once again the failing of government in Senegal and even most of Africa. This time after native Africans come to power.

The juxtaposition of regular, hard-working, citizens with the spoiled, corrupt, and prejudice (to their own citizens) government officials packs a heavy message. And unlike most, Sembene simply does not photograph the regular citizens for the simple juxtaposition, he keeps on them, showing you their true problems, and showing you their sacrifice.

All the while, hilarity ensues the corrupt government officials as hijinks after hijinks. The biggest problem being El Hadji's Xala ... he can't get it up for his young third wife.

Truly an interesting, intelligent, and worthwhile cinematic experience. And even if that doesn't seem to to interest you, watch it for the laughter ... there's plenty of it.

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10 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Dissenting review, 13 June 2005
5/10
Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN

One of the more famous African films, Xala comes from Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene, who had a well liked film that saw fairly wide release last year called Moolaadé. Moolaadé, for some reason, hasn't been released on DVD yet in the US, and, so far, it doesn't look like there's any imminent release. New Yorker video has provided us with two new DVDs from Sembene, this and Mandabi. Xala tells the story of a corrupt government official, El Hadji, who marries his third wife using pilfered funds. When El Hadji goes to consummate his marriage, he finds out he has been cursed with impotence, a curse known as xala. The historical context is slightly after Senegal's independence is achieved, and there are obvious metaphoric meanings of the impotence. The story and the politics behind it are rather interesting, and if I were the type to judge films solely on their politics I'd call this a good one. Unfortunately, the film moves so ungodly slowly that it is next to impossible to sit through. It runs for slightly over two hours, but has only about half that much material. I might recommend it to those interested in the history or just the region, but the rewards are limited. In short, it's a chore.

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4 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Is there no real independence?, 1 July 2007
7/10
Author: Lee Eisenberg (eisenberg.lee@gmail.com) from Portland, Oregon, USA

So far in my life, I've only seen two Senegalese movies: "Hyenas" and "Xala". The latter offers a satirical look at corruption.

The plot goes like this: following Senegal's independence from France, a crooked official - he makes sure that France still controls the country's resources - uses the country's money to get married for the third time. That's when poetic justice kicks in; he gets stricken with a curse called "xala", rendering him impotent.

If absolutely nothing else, this movie is a very impressive look at a culture that we in the west rarely get to see (and specifically, we get to hear Wolof spoken). Are the events portrayed cause for cynicism? Hard to say. But I recommend the movie either way.

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