The Knife Woman

Timité Bassori wanted African cinema to unsettle the Africans. Here, the Western virus of Freudian psychology is graphically introduced into a story laid out in traditional African terms. Yet African traditions are clearly being called into question through the difficulties of a young intellectual from the Ivory Coast, played by Bassori himself, who apparently is traumatised by an overly strict upbringing in Africa. When he returns home, after a long period in Europe, he has to face up to the difficulties of readjusting to his society and to his strong sexual inhibition, made manifest by the recurring appearance of a woman brandishing an impressive knife, which paralyses him with terror, and prevents him from having relations with women. He turns to traditional healers and medicine, but to no avail. Like in that other famous woman-with-a-knife film, he must finally confront the image of his mother.