Xime (1994)

In the 1960s, Amilcar Cabral, an architect turned revolutionary, declared war on the Portuguese, and launched Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde's struggle for independence. Raul, a follower of Cabral, and a member of his African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, has been assigned by central command to return to his home village Xime and convince the people that independence and freedom are something worth fighting for. However, his father Iala has more pressing concerns to worry about. Iala is about to marry a beautiful young woman, but his other son Bedan has his eyes set on his father's to-be bride, and spends more time loafing around and pulling pranks than he does helping his dad with the various household tasks that need to be completed. Xime is a bittersweet film, something along the lines of what Frank Capra would have made had he been a less sentimental Bissau-Guinean with a political conscience (not to say that Capra did not have a political conscience). Director Sana Na N'Hada tells the story of this plucky village in bright, joyous colors, energetic camera movements, and a bouncing, catchy soundtrack. His cinematic sensibilities are at once very European in terms of the style, but also very African in terms of the content. Though Xime is a very political film, he does not beat the viewer over the head with a political message, his film is ultimately a humanist work. His depiction of the struggle between the Africans and their European colonizers is a much more nuanced one than we see in a film like Med Hondo's Sarraounia, and while he does at times use caricature, N'Hada never falls back on it, and he never loses sight of the moral compass. It really is not until the second half that Xime really becomes political, the first half focuses more on Bedan and his antics, allowing one to become acquainted with the various characters that inhabit Xime in the process. Though Xime won an award at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, and was even in the running for the Palme d'Or, the westerncentric nature of the cinematic world has ensured that this masterpiece has been forgotten. Sana Na N'Hada never made another feature, and I have not been able to find any further information on him aside from the fact that he shot some footage for Chris Marker's Sans soleil, and some titles for a few short films. Oh, and a LinkedIn profile. Maybe someday he will again bring the world another work.