Mandabi
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 amandabi, 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 toBlack 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