Her troubles with the local women's committees in both the small coastal town and in Dakar, the capital, reveal elements of repressive tradition. He's a Zulu,' she informs Daam. In the tradition of Senegal's most famous filmmaker, Ousmane Sembene, Sene Absa finds the corruption and decay within his country unsettling. He also knows that easy answers don't exist. Yet, for all this satire and social criticism Tableau Ferraille pulls its viewers along with a rather light touch.
Nothing gets too heavy and ponderous.
Daam comes across as more pathetic and sad than evil. There are times, however, when the lightly sketched scenes and loosely tructured plot threaten to unravel into confusion. Sene Absa's avoidance of easy answers may pull the viewer off on one tangent too many. Music, as with any other art, gets its sense of depth from its counterpoint with its past. In the case of Germany, it is a question that might be levelled at all art since 1933 sometimes expressed in the idea that there can be no art after Auschwitz .