Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.
When I heard what Moolaade was about, it became the newest List addition that I least wanted to see. This film is about female genital mutilation, which is a subject I find difficult to even contemplate. I try not to shy away from things that are important, and don’t get me wrong—this is important. It just gives me the willies. Sembene’s film is, thankfully, wholly against the practice. Part of Moolaade’s purpose is doubtless to raise awareness of the topic. I’m all for that. It just happens that this topic is horribly icky.
A group of young girls escapes from this ritual exercise and rush back to their village, asking for the protection of Colle (Fatoumata Coulibaly), a woman who refused to have her daughter undergo the same ritual some years earlier. To enact her protection, she places a colored band of rope across the entrance to her house. This protection, called “Moolaade,” prevents anyone from coming into the house to harm the girls. This all becomes more relevant because Colle’s “unpurified” daughter Amasatou (Salimata Traore) is promised to one of the powerful village elders. This elder flatly refused to have his son marry an impure woman as is demanded by this particular Islamic sect.
