Camp de Thiaroye - DVD

Camp de Thiaroye på DVD.

Filmen är på franska och wolof från 1988 och är 2 tim 37 min lång.

In this semi-autobiographical film, black soldiers help to defend France, but are detained in prison camp before being repatriated home.

The story follows the return to Dakar of Senegalese riflemen who had fought for France and had been taken prisoner by the German army. Gathered at the Thiaroye military camp, they wait for the payment of the wages and compensation promised to them by the French colonial administration. Very quickly, the soldiers realize that they are treated with contempt, housed in degrading conditions, and above all deprived of what they are owed, as the authorities attempt to pay them a paltry sum compared to that granted to French soldiers.

Despite their peaceful and legitimate demands, dialogue deteriorates. Tensions rise between the riflemen and the colonial army. The situation turns tragic when the French authorities decide to violently suppress the protests, leading to the Thiaroye massacre, in which many African soldiers are killed by those for whom they had fought.

Camp de Thiaroye by Senegalese Director is a war movie without a war. Set on an army post in Senegal towards the final days of WWII, it follows a regiment of the French West African Armed Forces who have returned from a tour of duty in Europe.

The story is an allegory for the resistance movement to colonialism that sprung up after the war and led to the end of colonialism. Often bloody, it captures the relationship between American soldiers stationed in Dakar, French commanding officers and the French West Africans while touching on issues of racism, inferiority complex and black on black relationships.

Never one to lead the audience, Sembene takes his time staging scenes often with beautiful framing that eats up the edges of the screen. It may leisure and some scenes are didactic but it never wavers in its utmost honesty and its eventual humanism resulting from a cataclysmic ending that is both gripping that echoes the refrain that maybe we are all crazy.

It is one of the better movies of this master of cinema and in this reviewer's opinion, a 10/10.

Med: Ibrahim SANE, Daniel SIMON, Marthe MERCADIER, Sijiri BAKABA, Ismaël LO.

Extramaterial:
- Utdrag från samlingen (5 filmer)
- Ett porträtt av regissören, 10 min
- Arkivboxen
- Bibliografi och filmografi av Sembene Ousmane

DVD-film av Sembene Ousmane. Fransk version.