Faat Kine

As Gadjigo said in his film review, Faat Kine is “writer-director’s laser-sharp commentary of post-independence in Senegal”. Faat Kine is an independent woman who was born at the same time as Senegalese independence. She is a successful station manager of a multinational oil company as well as a single mother who never married. Women’s lives are the most powerful mirror of a country’s civilization. Different lives among Kine, her mother and her daughter reflected the changes in Senegal.

Kine was an ambitious woman who dreamed of becoming a lawyer after her education. However, she was seduced by Gaye, her philosophy professor, and left alone pregnant in her last year of secondary school, just months before her final exam. She was then expelled from school, and the unfair treatment showed a society that was controlled by men and weak to protect women. Kine’s pregnancy was a shame for her family, her conservative father even tried to kill both his daughter and her newborn. It was Mammy, Kine’s mother, who shielded the children with her body from her husband’s vicious blows. Mammy used to be a very powerless role in her family, but after decades, she became the most respectable women in Kine’s house. The movie indicated us that then Kine became a successful woman partially because of her beauty and sexual attraction. All of Kine’s encounters when she was young showed a post-colonial time when many waver at the crossroads of change and conservatism.

However, everything is changing. By the time that Kine’s children are graduated from high school, she is already a strong and liberated woman. She fights back whenever people want to take advantage of her and has control over her personal life. She works hard to get her children higher education to achieve the dream she failed to reach before. Her son, different from his father, represents a new generation that fight for democracy and equality. He tries his best to protect his mother and his generation is the hope for the revolutionary future.

Because of the colonization and globalization, many African countries were affected by Western ideologies. They adopt new ideals such as liberation and equality and fight against conservative traditions. Faat Kine showed the process of changing, from an old African world to a new free world. Maybe it is a good thing but who knows what has been lost during this transaction?http://www.africanfilmny.org/network/news/Rgadjigo.html