Focus on African films.

Focus on African Films

Edited by Francoise Pfaff

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. 327 pp., 30 b/w photos, bibliographies, index. $65 hardcover.

Francoise Pfaff's previous work includes Twenty-five Black African Filmmakers (1984) and The Cinema of Ousmane Sembene: Pioneer of African Film (1984), as well as numerous articles on African films and filmmakers. In her latest contribution to cinema studies, Pfaff offers an edited volume of essays by equally well-known scholars, as well as a few newcomers (and even a few visitors) to the field. The collection offers a number of valuable essays treating newer or less-frequently-studied films and, perhaps even more importantly, a variety of ways of reading African films.

Those new to African cinema studies will benefit from Pfaff's introduction to the collection, where she provides a brief overview of cinema in Africa and summarizes other scholars' attempts to classify African films. Educators wanting to incorporate African films into their courses will also find Mbye Cham's essay helpful, as it surveys recent films about historical events from throughout the continent, grouping them geographically and thematically. Josef Gugler's essay will be equally valuable to teachers; he analyzes three films--Camp de Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembene, 1987), Yaaba (Idrissa Ouedraogo, 1989), and Tire Gods Must Be Crazy (Jamie Uys, 1980)--using them to offer critics and teachers an important caveat about the historical accuracy of film and the need to contextualize African films, particularly for United States audiences.

The book is divided into six parts, in which essays are grouped thematically, with parts 1 and 2 forming the core of the collection. In part 1, "Reexamining 'Official History'" we hear from Robert Cancel, Samba Gadjigo, Chain, and Gugler on representations of history and the use of African film as a means of engaging with and teaching history.

In part 2, "Deconstructing Contextual Spaces," Francoise Pfaff, Madelein Cottenet-Hage, Kenneth Harrow, and Brenda E Berrian present detailed and unique readings of African films. Like Cham in part 1, Pfaff and Cottenet-Hage survey a large number of films, in this case those of Francophone Africa, demonstrating continuities in symbols and themes. In contrast, Harrow and Berrian each examine single films, Ousmane Sembene's Xala (1975) and Ceddo (1977) respectively. Their analysis of these films are unique and nuanced, Harrow bringing Jacques Lacan, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Jacques Derrida to bear on Xala while arguing that the main character, El-Hadj, is a failed trickster figure. Berrian examines the "soundscape" (p. 143) of Ceddo, drawing attention to the work of the film's composer Manu Dibango and the ways sound and music interact with visual imagery to contribute to the film's themes.

Parts 3, 4, and 5 of the collection contain but two essays each, suggesting the difficulty Pfaff may have had in gathering submissions and/or in combining them into a cohesive text with common themes. In part 3, a disappointing section on "Original and Burgeoning Cinematic Practices," we find essays by N. Frank Ukadike on documentary and Francoise Balogun on Nigerian video. Neither presents much new information or insight to those familiar with African film. Part 4, "Inside/Outside: Expatriate Filmmakers," presents interviews with Safi Faye by Beti Ellerson and with Haile Gerima by Pfaff. Both are important primary sources, all the more so for the contextualization offered by Ellerson's introductory essay and Pfaff's earlier interviews (1976-2001) with Gerima.

The two essays in Part 5, "International Connections: Influences and Confluences," written by non-Africanists, demonstrate the value in extending ourselves beyond the limits of an area studies approach to cinema. Josephine Wall, a Slavic specialist, chronicles Soviet training of, aid to, and interest in African filmmakers while also examining similarities between Soviet and Francophone African cinemas. Similarly, Maria Roof draws connections between Latin America and African film, examining politics, training, festivals, and coproductions between the two continents.

All this is to suggest the usefulness of Pfaff's latest book. What of its flaws? Two stand out, both of which concern Pfaff's contention that the book is "diverse," "pluralistic," and "kaleidoscopic" (p. 8). First is the over-emphasis on Ousmane Sembene, whose films Black Girl (1966), Borom Sarret (1966), Camp de Thiaroye (1987), Ceddo, Emitai (1971), Mandabi (1968), and Xala are each treated in three or more essays. There is no question that Sembene is one of Africa's most significant filmmakers. The repeated turn to his work, however, throws the collection off balance, making it a bit less varied than Pfaff would have it.

Second, in outlining the scope and purpose of the book, Pfaff mentions several times that the collection will look at films by black (or sub-Saharan black) African directors (p. 1), but neglects to offer a reason for this choice. The film industries in some countries (Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Tanzania come to mind) still have heavy involvement by both local and expatriate whites, not to mention Africans of Asian heritage, yet their exclusion from her conception of African film goes unexplained. In fact some of the other authors belie this exclusion, with, for example, Cham mentioning (albeit briefly) Flame (1996) "by British-born and Zimbabwean-naturalized Ingrid Sinclair" (p. 54), as well as discussing films made in Africa by Sarah Maldoror of Guadeloupe (p. 51), African American Robert Van Lierop (p. 52), Haitian Raoul Peck (p. 55), and so on. Pfaff's bounding of African film by skin color and geography is regrettable, especially since she goes to great pains to emphasis that the collection provides "unique and pluralistic perspectives" (p. 8).

I would have liked to read a bit more about how and why these particular essays were selected, and about the gaps (geographic, ethnic, or thematic) in African cinema that the collection leaves untouched, particularly the "original" and "burgeoning" practices that are under-examined in part 3. This is not to suggest that the collection should have filled all such gaps (that task remains for other scholars), but an outline of areas that remain under-researched would have helped to make the collection more inclusive of Africa's cinematic diversity.