Moolaade (2004)

Talking about 83-year-old directors, as one does, the film is the most recent release from the veteran African director, Ousmane Sembene, and it was not an easy watch.  It was however a rewarding one and a film that deserves to be better known for its attack against ritual female circumcision -- not you may think the most appealing subject matter.  Set in a small West African village, four young girls seek protection with a woman who refused to allow her daughter to be "purified" in this way some years before (because of her own bad experiences with the physical results).  The woman blocks off the entrance to her courtyard with a length of wool to create a "moolaade", a spell of sanctuary, which can not be broken until she gives the word.  The elders of the village (the Taleban have nothing on them) browbeat all of the men into believing that the Koran insists upon this ceremony, that no decent man would wed an uncircumcised female, and that women are solely there to be dominated.  They even decide to confiscate all of the village women's radios as being unholy influences.  They force our heroine's husband to flog her publicly, but still she will not say the word to end the spell.  By the end of the film, one can sense that things will change in the future -- but slowly, very slowly.  I find it amazing that a man of Sembene's age and status would tackle this subject, but it is brilliantly done.