The Huge Contribution to Cinema of Idrissa Ouedraogo

Two Burkina Faso filmmakers dominated the 1980s and 90s on an international level: Gaston Kaboré and Idrissa Ouedraogo. While the former went on to dedicate himself to training and teaching, the latter abandoned cinema to focus on television series and production. He passed away at age sixty-four, much too young, on February 18, 2018. We should shed some light on his significant contribution to film history as well as examine why he turned away from the medium.

Social Realism as a Foundation

In the 1960s, African cinema was an activist endeavor focused on recovering Africans’ sense of identity and lost spaces; this gave rise to social commentary in the 70s. African cinema began by posing questions about the founding values of a decolonized society. Even when narrating fictional stories, these films were about strong ties to the community. Confronted with the authoritarian tendencies of the “nation’s forefathers,” the filmmakers gathered in Niamey in 1982, seeking to disengage themselves from state control. Given the disillusionment that followed independence, the cinema of the 1980s turned introspective: it focused on questioning everyone’s responsibility in the face of a collective defeat. This cinema is close in form to the “novel”; it is about the “I” instead of the “we.” Though fictional, it presents opportunities for social change and a change in worldview.

This introspective cinema of the 1980s is based on a point of view deeply rooted in social realism. Ouedraogo’s short films prioritize reality: when images speak for themselves, what is the point in commenting on them? One hears the street sounds in Ouedraogo’s Ouagadougou, Ouaga, deux roues (1984), a ballet of images on the two-wheeled traffic of Burkina Faso’s capital. It is a wordless documentary, as are those works that celebrate traditional handicrafts, Les Ecuelles (1983) and Issa le tisserand (1984):¹ “These were impressions, shots, images driven by an idea, because at the time I was wanting to make film which was socio-educative in character, targeted at an audience that was 90 percent illiterate. That meant a style of cinema in which the image was preponderant, which could be easily understood by an audience speaking forty-two different languages.”² Easily? Does not Ouedraogo’s work already prefigure the current pursuit of a documentary form in which the absence of commentary compels viewers to provide their own interpretation?

If Ouedraogo’s goal was to incite his immediate audience to value their expertise and daily lives, Poko (1981), his first fictional film, recounts the unfortunately common drama of a mother in childbirth whose heavy burden drags her down while the midwife cannot help her. She dies while being carried to the town hospital on a donkey-drawn cart. Back in the village where life goes on, we see the precariousness of farmers’ lives and their unflinching courage that inspires Ouedraogo in this realistic approach to fiction. It ends with a shot of millet stems blown by the wind, a powerful reminder of the inescapable passage of time.

The Choice of a Fictional Mode

We see characters in their day-to-day lives, with little dialogue; there’s a village council. The film is mostly punctuated by the sounds of daily activities while Larlé Naaba’s violinists accompany the story with their instruments and chanting. As Jacques Attali reminds us, a society speaks more through its sound and music than through statistics. This way of listening is the most important element of Idrissa’s cinema and is part of the success of his first feature film, Yam Daabo (The Choice, 1986). This film is a reflection of society, yet it uses the subjectivity of fiction to portray the trials and tribulations of a Sahelian family looking for a better life in the south. The rhythm that emerges resembles the blues, along with movement and constant relocation as favored elements of the mise-en-scène. The “choice” in question is whether a family from a village in the Sahel should continue to wait for international food aid or move out to seek a better life in the south...