Borom Sarret. 1963. Directed by Ousmane Sembene.

(12/28/00)

I very much liked the photography of Borom Sarret.

The film has a political significance which was lost on me, really. It is the story of a cart-driver in Dakar who is persuaded to drive a client into a section of the city where cart-drivers (borom sarrets) are not allowed. He is arrested, the customer leaves without paying and his cart is confiscated. He has to return to his wife and children without the means to make a living.

The story is told through interior monologue. The driver comes across as an average person, not particularly likable.

The two sections of the city are contrasted through music. We hear African music when we are in the poor section and Western music when we are in the wealthy section. The soundtrack is quite inventive. When the driver is stopped by the authorities the sound ceases to be natural and becomes subjective, expressing his shock. There is also the motif of a squeaky wheel on the cart.

The driver is asked to take a pregnant woman to the maternity hospital. (He has difficulty driving because she insists on resting her head on his shoulder.) Soon afterwards he is hired to drive a man with a dead child to the cemetery. Birth and death are thus linked.

After he has been swindled and his cart confiscated the driver thinks back on these encounters, mentally blaming the customers involved for what happened to him. It was the fault of the man who had hired him to drive the child's body to the cemetery. It was the fault of the man who hired him to drive his wife to the maternity hospital. This is a very genuine human reaction.

For me, this film is a depiction of human meanness. I suppose the authorities in the wealthy district needed to keep some kind of order or protect the power structure. But did they really need to take his cart? I think that a stern warning would have been sufficient (as well as being deprived of his fare). Taking away his means of support really accomplished nothing except adding to the amount of misery in the world.

But I suspect that there was a lot to this picture which eluded me.