TILAÏ Movie Review

The Law

Though the setting is African, the opening scene suggests The Ox-Bow Incident; a rider (on donkey, not horseback) is returning home to his village after a long journey, and immediately stops to ask about his fiancée. It's bad enough that he learns she's gotten married while he was away, but it's quite another matter when he finds out that the other man is his own father. Not letting a little thing like that get in his way, he begins an illicit affair with the woman who is now his stepmother, and soon finds himself in an even tougher spot—the affair is considered incest in the tribe's tilaï (the law), and the punishment it carries is death. With a plot that recalls James M. Cain and imagery that conjures John Ford, this remarkable, engaging, and richly moving drama from Burkina Faso's Idrissa Ouedraogo was the deserving winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Tilaï confirms Ouedraogo's status as one of the most important cinematic talents to emerge from the new African cinema.

NEW STOP … Yaaba, Emitai, Ceddo

1990 81m/C Rasmane Ouedraogo, Ina Cisse, Roukietou Barry; D: Idrissa Ouedraogo; W: Idrissa Ouedraogo; C: Pierre-Laurent Chenieux, Jean Monsigny; M: Abdullah Ibrahim. Cannes Film Festival ‘90: Grand Jury Prize. VHS NYF