Karmen Gei.

Karmen Gei Written and directed by Joseph Gai Ramaka, produced by Richard Sadler 82 minutes, color 2001, Senegal In French and Wolof with English subtitles VHS distributed by California Newsreel and DVD distributed by Kino International

Based loosely on Georges Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen, Karmen Gei is the first African film musical of this frequently adapted tale. (1) In Karmen Gei, Senegalese filmmaker Joseph Gai Ramaka deploys several creative interventions to re-imagine the legendary story from 1820's Spain to postcolonial, urban Senegal. Gai Ramaka is not especially invested in delivering a faithful rendition of the well-known Carmen plot. Rather, his production focuses on exploring both the exuberance and destructive power of Karmen's character. Gai Ramaka takes the Carmen prototype, originally a free-spirited gypsy, and reframes her within the prism of Senegalese life in particular and postcolonial Africa in general. In this frame, Karmen is not just an independent, free-spirited woman whose voracious carnal desire leads to her tragic fate. She is also an outlaw, sexual maverick, and political dissident. Within the first ten minutes of the film, Gai Ramaka establishes Karmen as a veritable force of nature capable of destabilizing anyone and anything in her path. As the chorus of women inmates sings, "Be careful! Hide your women, hide your men. Karmen has come! She who creates havoc is here."

The key ingredient of the Carmen legend is the relationship among the protagonist Karmen, singer Massigi (Escamillo the toreador in the Bizet version), and the corporal Lamine Diop (Don Jose in the Bizet version) whose life she ruins and who eventually kills her. In this version, Gai Ramaka further complicates the love triangle with the character of Angelique, the prison warden whom Karmen seduces, thereby ensuring her escape from Kumba Kastel women's prison. (2) Gai Ramaka's inclusion of Karmen's relationship with Angelique is both the most avant-garde aspect of his adaptation and the most essential to the story's postcolonial perspective. As suggested by her name, the comparatively fair-skinned Angelique provides an important antithesis to Karmen's "devilish" character. Because Angelique is Christian, as demonstrated by her funeral, and a prison warden, she represents the authority of the former colonizers. Karmen, on the other hand, embodies the counterpoint to and collapse of all that Angelique represents. After realizing that she can never truly possess Karmen, the despondent Angelique commits suicide by drowning herself in the seemingly boundless ocean off Goree Island's coast.

Set within the postcolonial context, Karmen's unbridled freedom poses a threat to the colonial and patriarchal structures that can neither control nor contain her. Although Karmen's sexuality serves her pleasure, it is also her tool of power, for it embodies the means by which she challenges and destroys symbols of authority, including the prison warden Angelique and army corporal Lamine Diop. Along the same lines, Karmen's bisexuality indicates her full sexual liberation from heterosexual patriarchy. Her "emancipation" thus raises a compelling question about women and sexual politics in Senegalese society: What power do women possess to topple the structures of authority? Like the films of fellow Senegalese Ousmane Sembene, Gai Ramaka's production praises the might of women. Several scenes are crucial to constructing this motif. In addition to the beach scene where Karmen extols women's strength to Massigi, the lengthy musical scene at Karmen's mother's bar also references female Senegalese historical figures renowned for their heroism, bravery, and tragedy. It is here that we meet Massigi who, like a griot, recounts the legacies of Aline Sitoe and the women of Nder. (3)

Compared to films by Senegalese filmmakers, including Ousmane Sembene and Djibril Diop Mambety, known for their slow pace, serious tone, and sociopolitical didacticism, Gai Ramaka "s production might be characterized as entertaining and action-packed. The film does, however, swell with political message. A particularly important scene for establishing Karmen's politicization involves her dramatic appearance at the wedding of corporal Lamine Diop and Majguene, daughter of military elite. After taking center stage in the dance arena, Karmen aggressively denounces the wedding party's lavish celebration, the extravagance of which is presumably buttressed by misappropriated state resources. She indicts their corruption: "You are all evil. You have swallowed up the country, but we'll eat your guts. You've swallowed up the country but it will stick in your throat." It is significant that the chorus supports her actions in this scene as well as other scenes where they are present. Their support of her defiance marks her status as a popular hero.

Filmed in Senegal's capital Dakar, the coastal town Joal, and historic Goree Island, setting is crucial to Gai Ramaka's narrative. Once a point in the slave trade, Goree Island's fortress-like architecture, dramatic corridors, and arched entryways provide a visually powerful stage for action while alluding to the greed and exploitation associated with this historic site. Positioning Kumba Kastel women's prison on Goree Island further underscores the parallel between sexual politics, freedom, and the physical structures of incarceration. Other important scenes occur at Dakar's lighthouse, HEM market, and the national theater, where Karmen submits to death at the hands of former lover Lamine.

With Djeinaba Diop Gai playing the lead, Karmen is commanding, fiery, sensual, playful, and dangerous. Despite her newcomer status, Diop is successful at portraying Karmen's complexities. One moment she sings tenderly in a low voice, the next she harshly indicts corruption. With her electrifying smile and imposing physical presence, she is at once intimidating and irresistible. Several scenes open with Karmen in the midst of intense action, making grand entrances, fleeing, seducing, challenging structures of power, and even leading a ring of smugglers. She seems to live for pleasure and danger, action and passion. Karmen seduces and leaves destruction in her path. Towering over most of the film's principal actors, the protagonist is larger than life, and even heroic at times.

Perhaps the most fundamental distinction between Gai Ramaka's production and other versions of this story involves the film's aural dimension. Gai Ramaka's use of music and dance serves to locate the production in Senegalese culture. He eliminates Bizet's famous musical score and instead relies on ten musical scenes to convey much of the narrative. Interestingly, the jazz of tenor saxophonist David Murray plays throughout the production, fusing with energetic drumming, spellbinding lullabies, and call and response based exchanges. Julien Jouga's choir, the hypnotic voice of Yande Coudou Sene, and Doudou Rose N'diaye's sabar drummers are featured. The fusion of musical forms, along with dialogue in Wolof and French, highlights the cosmopolitan, hybrid reality of urban Senegal.

Karmen Gei is itself a hybrid production. Marketed as the first film musical from Africa, it also builds upon an indigenous West African expressive form. By interweaving music, dance, and song in storytelling and personal expression, the film references the role of griots in popular entertainment and the transmission of narrative. The film's aural dimension is both narrative and expressive, conveying more than what dialogue could alone. For instance, in addition to dancing her desire, Karmen chants her hostility and sings fatefully of her own vulnerability. Despite some criticism that the film was gratuitously erotic, the sexual scenes are indispensable elements of Gai Ramaka's story for they ultimately inscribe Karmen with power.

While Gai Ramaka has made a series of short films, including the award-winning Ainsi soit-it, Karmen is his first full-length feature film. Its premiere in Dakar in June 2001 generated a good deal of controversy that resulted in the government censoring the film shortly after its opening night. The censorship responded to protests by the influential Mouride religious brotherhood, which condemned the inclusion of a Mouride khassaide, or religious song, during Angelique's funeral. Despite certain inconsistencies in the film's plot, narrative, and pace, Karmen is a captivating production. Indeed, GaY Ramaka demonstrates that this famed tale transcends cultural and geographical boundaries. While the story is a tragedy about a woman whose liberated sexuality is destructive, it is also an ode to freedom. By exploring the intersections between power, liberation, sexuality and destruction, Karmen Gei offers an important foil to consider the complexities of postcolonial life and sexual politics in contemporary Africa.

(1.) French writer Prosper Merimee wrote the novella Carmen in 1845. The story has been adapted in film more than fifty times.

(2.) In popular references, Kumba Kastel is considered the spirit of a beautiful and dangerous woman who resides in the sea. Kumba Kastel is mentioned three times in the film and Karmen is even described as her granddaughter.

(3.) These references live in Senegalese historical memory as important figures of resistance to foreign invaders. The noble women of Nder, the ancient capital of the Waalo kingdom, burned themselves to death rather than submit to capture by invading forces. Aline Sitoe Diatta is celebrated for resisting the French colonials who later deported her to Timbuktu in 1943, where she died the following year.