Saaraba (Utopia); Wend Kuuni (God's Gift); Yeelen (Brightness)

Seeing Africa through African eyes is the thematic thread that runs throughout these three representatives of modern African cinema. Saaraba, the most accessible of the trio, is a richly developed drama focusing on the psychological plight of Tamsir, a Senegalese young man who returns from France to visit his native village, and is torn between the prompting of his Western education with its emphasis on progress and personal growth, and the untainted simplicity of his village, which he sees threatened by the encroaching technology. Ironically, even as Tamsir rebels against the steady loss of tradition, he finds himself the victim of traditional customs, when the girl he loves is "promised" by the girl's parents to a local politician. Like a modern-day Hamlet, Tamsir cannot resolve the conflicting voices in his mind, and his journey to self-realization takes him from hashish-smoking escape and despair to tragic enlightenment. Directed by young African director Amadou Saalum Seck, Saaraba comfortably achieves a probing, incisive examination of contemporary Africa's post-independence problems while, at the same time, telling a compelling dramatic story. In contrast to Saaraba's quick pace and multiple storylines, Wend Kuuni is a leisurely paced fable that tells of a young amnesiac mute boy who is found by a peddler and adopted by a village family. Dubbed "Wend Kuuni," or "God's gift," by his new foster parents, the boy is befriended by his new sister Pognere. As villagers traverse the local countryside trying to discover the origins of the boy, Wend Kuuni grows into a fine young shepherd. One day while roaming the fields, he comes upon a corpse hanging from a tree, and the shock brings back both his voice and his memory--and viewers discover that superstition is a doubled-edged sword. The villagers see Wend Kuuni as a lucky charm, but as we eventually find out, the cruel side of superstition brought the boy to the village in the first place. Yeelen is a challenging and gorgeously filmed epic based on the oral traditions and myths of the Bambara people of Mali. Set in the 13th century, the film follows the Oedipal battle between father and son. Following the advice of his mother, young Nianankoro sets out on a literal and spiritual journey to retrieve the "wing of Kore" from his uncle. He must confront his father, Somo, who is scouring the "7 earths, the sea and the sky" to find and kill his son. Somo doesn't feel his son worthy of the secrets of the Kono, a mystical society which hoards the secrets of medicine, hunting, and the occult. While two servants carry the "magic post," a bulky pole which points the way towards Nianankoro, the old man offers a steady stream of supplications and curses toward the gods and his son, respectively, as he continues his unrelenting search. Eventually Nianankoro obtains the power necessary to confront his father, and the film ends on a beautifully metaphorical note which signals the end of an oppressive society, and the beginning of a new, hopefully gentler one. In an area virtually unrepresented on either video store or library shelves--African cinema--these three films will make an excellent start. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)