“The dean of Senegalese cinema, Ousmane Sembene, has created one of the most sophisticated works of the new African cinema--at once both comic satire and a deadly accurate polemic against the black bourgeoisie of Dakar. An elderly bureaucrat, El Hadj Aboubakar Baye by name, has become rich, corrupt and complacent as one of the money-hungry Ministers of Commerce. Not only does he possess a thriving private business, a new Mercedes-Benz (washed only with bottled Evian), but two wives as well. It is El Hadj's decision to take a young woman as a third wife that engulfs him in the lively complications of the plot.... Sembene introduces the problem of El Hadj's sudden impotence as a dramatic surprise, and when the luckless hero seeks a cure for this ‘Xala,' the ancient codes and customs of Senegalese life clash violently with the present, leading to a shocking and memorable climax. Symbol and reality merge, with touches reminiscent of Buñuel: one suddenly realizes that in Senegal, perhaps, the prisoners are happier than the peasants.” --Albert Johnson