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| Ousmane Sembène & Thierno Faty Sow: Camp de Thiaroye / The Camp at Thiaroye (SN/DZ/TN 1988). |
Campo Thiaroye / The Camp at Thiaroye
SN/DZ/TN 1988. [Senegal/Algeria/Tunisia]. Prod.: Enaproc, Films Domireew, Films Kajoor, Satpec, Société Nouvelle Pathé Cinéma.
Director: Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow. Scen.: Ousmane Sembène, Thierno Faty Sow. F.: Ismail Lakhdar Hamina. M.: Kahena Attia. Mus.: Ismaila Lo. Int.: Ibrahim Sane (sergente capo Diatta), Jean-Daniel Simon (capitano Raymond), Marthe Mercadier (la proprietaria del ‘Coq hardi’), Sidiki Bakaba (Sijirii Bakara), Pays Ismaël Lô (il soldato che suona l’armonica), Casimir Zoba (un soldato congolese). DCP. 147’. Col.
In Wolof and French [including petit nègre patois to enable screenings all over West Africa without dubbing or subtitling].
Festival premiere: 1988 Venice (Grand Jury Prize)
French premiere: n.a. IMDb; according to French Wikipedia: "sortie discrète à Paris le 7 janvier 1998; semble n'avoir été diffusé par la télévision française et est paru en DVD seulement en 2005."
Not released in Finland.
From The Film Foundation with English subtitles.
Restored in 2024 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in collaboration with the Tunisian Ministry of Culture and the Senegalese Ministry of Culture and Communication. Special thanks to Mohammed Challouf. Restored in 4K from the original negatives preserved by the Tunisian Ministry of Culture.
Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Cinemalibero. E-subtitles in Italian by L'Immagine Ritrovata.
Introduced by Margaret Bodde (The Film Foundation), Aboubakar Sanogo (FEPACI), Mohamed Challouf (Association Ciné-Sud Patrimoine).
Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 25 June 2024
Mohamed Challouf (Bologna 2024 Catalogue): " This restoration is part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, the FEPACI and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – to help locate, restore and disseminate African cinema. "
" Many African films have received the support of French funding, but Camp de Thiaroye is one of a series of films whose very existence French funders and producers did everything in their power to prevent. They argued that such films were highly subversive since they denounced the barbarity of colonisation. A Western world that continues to brandish its claim to human rights was incapable of tolerating films about its criminal past. I recall that post-fascist and democratic Italy also censored the remarkable movie The Lion of the Desert, a condemnation of the crimes committed by soldiers of the fascist regime in Libya. This masterpiece by Syrian Mustapha Akkad, produced by Libya, was distributed worldwide, but ironically, it was banned for Italian audiences, the very people allegedly concerned. It should also be pointed out that producers of the North refused to finance Amok, an anti-apartheid work directed by Moroccan filmmaker Souheil Ben Barka, featuring a cast of extraordinary actors including Miriam Makeba and Douta Seck. The film was only made possible by all-South funding from Morocco, Senegal and Guinea. When it became a hit at festivals around the world at the height of the African National Congress’s anti-apartheid movement, a racist Swiss distributor purchased the exclusive distribution rights for the whole of the West at a high price – not so that he could distribute it, but simply to ensure it would be fully blocked for the ten years of its contract. "
" The film Camp de Thiaroye by Sembène Ousmane and Thierno Faty Sow was made thanks to the collaboration of three countries of the South: Senegal, Tunisia and Algeria, with a pan-African team of technical and artistic directors. Post-production was carried out at the SATPEC in Tunisia. When the film was finished, Cannes 1988 rejected it. However, in September of the same year, it was screened as an official selection at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize. "
" This crucial pan-African film about the importance of remembrance does justice to those known as the Senegalese tirailleurs, the majority of whom were drafted into the French army against their will to fight the Nazis. After making substantial sacrifices and suffering thousands of casualties to defend France, the tirailleurs who had survived the war were nonetheless humiliated and mistreated by the French army. Instead of rewarding them, the French forces bombarded and massacred these soldiers when they demanded their right to the end-of-enlistment recompense. " Mohamed Challouf (Bologna 2024 Catalogue)
AA: We are celebrating the 80th anniversary of D-Day (6 June 1944) and forgetting the crucial role played in it by Black soldiers. (As well as the fact that 80% of the military deaths of the Wehrmacht were on the Eastern Front).
I saw in March Anthony Mann's Devil's Doorway (US 1949) about a Shoshone Civil War hero returning home - only to discover that he is not even a US citizen and will face death for his fight for his right to justice.
I am struck by the similarity in Camp de Thiaroye, the story of the tirailleurs Sénégalais in WWII, directed by Sembène Ousmane, himself a veteran tirailleur Sénégalais. It is epic historical fiction based on a true story.
We are also remembering the 80th anniversary of the Thiaroye tragedy (1 December 1944), in which French colonial troops and gendarmes massacred West African soldiers who claimed fair compensation for five years of service. It was one of many such violent confrontations.
West Africans had been promised equal citizenship of France after the war. We are reminded of La Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789 that we just saw on Sunday in Napoléon vu par Abel Gance.
Black colonial troops made up three fourths of Charles de Gaulle's Free French Army, but before the liberation of Paris, Black fighters were removed from liberation ceremonies, photographers and newsreel cameras in an intentional camouflage operation called enblanchissement (the whitening).
Senegalese riflemen fought in the Battle of France since day one as de Gaulle's first fighters, and de Gaulle was not the one responsible for their effacement. American and British allies were the ones who wanted to suppress Black visibility in the liberation.
Like Anthony Mann, directing with cool and sober awareness of extreme injustice, Sembène Ousmane avoids caricature. We meet a range of White French officers, including ones that are fair, just and humane such as Captain Raymond (Jean-Daniel Simon).
We also meet a Black intellectual officer, Diatta (Ibrahim Sane) who is married with children with a White Frenchwoman, listens to Charlie Parker and reads Le Silence de la mer by Vercors.
There is also Pays (Sijiri Bakaba), a Buchenwald survivor, who has become insane but is also the first to register that French colonialism is not that different from Nazi occupation. For him, Thiaroye is like Buchenwald with its barbed wire fences and watchtowers. Only food is inferior in Thiaroye.
120.000 soldiers from French colonies were captured by Germans during the occupation. Many were summarily massacred in racial purges "to prevent Rassenschande". In Dunkirk, Blacks were not allowed to escape to England. Pays in his watchtower is the only one who notices the French military approaching for the final purge. Because he claims that Nazis are coming, nobody believes him.
Surprisingly, in Dakar, Americans are the worst. The racism of the American military police is scary.
Camp de Thiaroye never had a regular French premiere. Ten years after it won the Grand Jury Prize in the Venice Film Festival, it only had a "sortie discrète" in France.
In 2012, President François Hollande became the first French politician to officially recall the tragedy. He promised to deposit the documents to Senegal, but only one source of three major ones was made available.
Among Sembène Ousmane's classmates at the VGIK film academy in Moscow in 1961 was Sarah Maldoror whose Guinea-Cape Verde liberation trilogy we saw yesterday.
P.S. The whitening (emblanchissement) is discussed by Gary Younge in Financial Times, 3 August 2024.
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: THE FINNISH FILM ARCHIVE PROGRAM NOTE BY SATU LAAKSONEN (1993)
SUOMEN ELOKUVA-ARKISTO / FINLANDS FILMARKIV
Le Camp de Thiaroye
Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia 1988. Tuotantoyhtiöt: SNPC SNPC (Dakar), ENAPROC (Alger), SATPEC (Tunis), Film Domirev (Dakar), Film Kajoor (Thies). Ohjaus: Sembène Ousmane, Thierno Faty Sow. Käsikirjoitus: Sembène Ousmane, Thierno Faty Sow. Kuvaus: Ismail Lakhdar Hamina. Musiikki: Imaila Lo. Leikkaus: Kahena Attia-Riveill. Pääosissa: Ibrahima Sane (ylikersantti Diatta), Sijiri Bakaba (Pays), Jean Daniel Simon (kapteeni Raymond). 153 min
Sembène Ousmanen viimeisin elokuva Le Camp de Thiaroye on syntynyt yhteistyössä Thierno Faty Sow'n kanssa. Se perustuu tositapahtumiin ja sijoittuu vuoteen 1944, jolloin tuhannet eri Länsi-Afrikan maista kootut siirtomaasotilaat siirrettiin Senegaliin odottamaan lopullista vapautumistaan Ranskan armeijan palveluksesta. He olivat taistelleet Euroopassa viisi vuotta ranskalaisten ja liittoutuneiden puolesta saksalaisia vastaan, kokeneet keskitysleirien kauhut ja miehitetyn maan tragedian. Samalla he olivat uskoneet taistelevansa myös oman vapautensa puolesta. Nyt he odottivat heille luvattua rahallista korvausta ja kotiinpääsyä.
Le Camp de Thiaroye on yksi näistä siirtymäkauden leireistä. Sen oloja ja päivittäisiä tapahtumia tarkastellaan afrikkalaisten silmin, ja leirin arkielämä paljastaa afrikkalaisten ja heidän valkoisten upseeriensa väliset, yhä voimistuvat jännitteet. Ranskalaisten kontrolli ulottuu pienimpiinkin yksityiskohtiin, mutta kokemukset Euroopassa ovat lisänneet sotilaiden poliittista tietoisuutta, ja he ovat ehtineet nähdä siirtomaa-armeijan mahdin murenemisen. Niinpä viimeinen pisara – luvattujen rahallisten korvausten puolittaminen – nostattaa heidät kapinaan, jossa on jo tulevien itsenäistymistaistelujen siemen.
Yksi elokuvan keskushahmoista ja tavallaan uuden, uneksitun aikakauden airut on senegalilainen ylikersantti Diatta (Ibrahim Sane), joka on opiskellut Euroopassa, omaksunut täysin eurooppalaisen sivistyksen, mutta säilyttänyt silti afrikkalaisuutensa, mistä todisteena on sotilaiden ehdoton luottamus. Hänen ranskalainen vastineensa on kapteeni Raymond (Jean Daniel Simon), joka kaikin keinoin pyrkii välttämään väärinkäytökset. Mutta heidän ponnistuksensa raukeavat tyhjiin, sillä vielä kertaalleen petetyt sotilaat teurastetaan aamun koitteessa.
Toisiaan ymmärtääkseen eri kielialueilta tulevat sotilaat käyttävät yksinkertaistettua, murteellista ranskaa, jota halveksien on tapana kutsua nimellä "petit nègre". Se on keino osoittaa heidän yhteinen siirtomaamenneisyytensä, mutta sen käyttöön on toinenkin syy: näin elokuva on ymmärrettävissä kaikkialla Länsi-Afrikassa ilman dubbausta tai tekstitystä! Sotilaiden puhetyyli on kuitenkin retorista, lähes teatraalista. Se on heijastusta perinteisistä, keskustelevista yhteiskunnista joissa asioita käsiteltiin, kunnes yhteinen ratkaisu oli löydettävissä.
Sotilaista mieliinpainuvimpia on Buchenwaldissa järkensä menettänyt Pays (Sijiri Bakaba). Hänen läsnäolossaan, reaktioissaan koetut painajaiset yhä jatkuvat, tihentyvät. Kun hän kidnappaa leiriä "rauhoittamaan" tulleen kenraalin, vastakkain joutuu kaksi tyystin vierasta maailmaa. Kenraalin tuijotuksessa Pays paisuu silmissämme jonkinlaiseksi Idi Amin Dadaksi. Mutta afrikkalaisen perinteen mukaisesti hullulla on totuus huulillaan: vain Pays aavistaa petoksen kenraalin kääntymyksessä ja toisten nukkuessa toiveikasta unta vain Pays valvoo vartiotornissa ja näkee tuhon tulevan. Lohduton kuva, joka vertautuu nykyhetkenkin Afrikkaan.
– Satu Laaksonen (1993)
SYNOPSIS FROM ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA:
A Senegalese platoon of soldiers from the French Free Army are returned from combat in France and held for a temporary time in a military encampment with barbed wire fences and guard towers in the desert. Among their numbers are Sergeant Diatta, the charismatic leader of the troop who was educated in Paris and has a French wife and child, and Pays, a Senegalese soldier left in a state of shock from the war and concentration camps and who can only speak in guttural screams and grunts.
All is well until the soldiers start to complain about the food offered in the camp, to which the French commander says he will do nothing about, as meat is reserved for white officers. To kill time, Sergeant Diatta goes into town to find a brothel, and is thrown out of one because he is African; he is subsequently found by American troops, who beat and capture him. As revenge, the Senegalese troops capture a white American soldier and an exchange is made between the two prisoners, and the Americans threaten to level the camp and kill everyone.
As the Senegalese troops are about to be transferred out of the camp, they learn they will only be given half the pay for their service as the French troops are unfairly converting French francs to Senegalese francs at half the rate to save money. The Senegalese troops capture the camp and take a French general hostage, beginning a mutiny. The mutiny ends when the officer gives them his word that they will be given their proper pay. That night, they dance and celebrate. At about 3 am, Pays is in a watch tower and sees tanks approaching the camp, and wakes up the other soldiers, but is unable to tell them what is happening; they think he is saying that Nazis are invading the camp, and dismiss him as being crazy. An hour or so later, the French tanks open fire on the camp, killing Diatta, Pays and the rest of the Senegalese platoon.
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