The Knife Woman
Mon 28 OctTimité 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.
Bonus
The screening will be preceded by Bassori‘s short film On the Dune of Solitude
About On the Dune of Solitude
Ivory Coast | 1964 | Dir Timité Bassori, with Elise Toure, Julien Keita, Brahim Kouyate | in French with English subtitles | 32 mins
The film is based on a legend where Mamy Watta, the goddess of water, seduces humans. It is the meeting of two young people one evening at the edge of the lagoon. The two young people get to know each other and spend the night at the water’s edge. The next morning, when I woke up, the young girl had disappeared. Curiously, later, the young man will find the face of his companion of one night on a deathbed.