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Moolaadé

Universal acclaim
Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by: Ousmane Sembene
Directed by: Ousmane Sembene
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 15, 2004
Running Time: 124 minutes, Color
Origin: Senegal / France
Language(s): Jula / French (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maimouna Hélène Diarra, Salimata Traoré, Aminata Dao, Dominique Zeïda, and Mah Compaoré
A rousing polemic directed against the still common African practice of female circumcision. (New Yorker Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Faat Kiné
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The New York Times Dana Stevens
To skip Moolaade would be to miss an opportunity to experience the embracing, affirming, world-changing potential of humanist cinema at its finest.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The result: This great work of art has the potential to change the world.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This sometimes harrowing, often delightful drama stands with his (Sembène) most compassionate, colorful, and artfully filmed works.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A beautiful picture with a great heart, a classic-to-be with a common touch.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
This is a masterwork by Ousmane Sembene, the 81-year-old father of African cinema and one of Senegal's greatest novelists.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This was for me the best film at Cannes 2004, a story vibrating with urgency and life. It makes a powerful statement and at the same time contains humor, charm and astonishing visual beauty.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's worth stressing how deeply pleasurable Moolaad is to watch.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Melissa Levine
It's not easy to pull off a good morality tale. That's why Moolaad, the new film from 81-year-old Senegalese writer-director Ousmane Sembene, feels like such an exceptional success. Its moral center is painfully clear, but so is its humanity.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
As empowering and triumphant a film as you'll see this or any year.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Once in a rare while a film comes along that is boldly original, communicates an important idea in an elegantly simple fashion and happens to be highly entertaining. Such is the case with Moolaadé.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Quite possibly the most buoyant, exuberant film ever made on such an unpleasant topic.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
There's such a rich sense of the fullness of life in Moolaadé that it sustains those passages that are truly and necessarily harrowing.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Sembène's love of his people and his commitment to the richness that underlies the poverty of their condition have always made his films gems of truth, as they do once again here.
Read Full Review >Variety Scott Foundas
This richly textured parable feels every inch the work of a master.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
This has to be the most richly entertaining movie anyone has ever made on the subject of female genital mutilation.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Fatoumata Coulibaly's peformance is striking. She plays her character with a mixture of determination and compassion.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
It's a deceptively simple tale that tackles, serenely and with surprising humor, issues of gender, power, custom and change.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Brilliantly colored and passionately acted, Moolaade teems with incidents, personalities and drama and is never less than vivid.
Read Full Review >Empire David Parkinson
Poetic, provocative and unstoppably powerful. But, depressingly, it probably won't change a thing.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
A marvelously entertaining, deeply moving treatment of a highly controversial practice: female genital mutilation.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Though Moolaadé doesn't shy away from the task of educating its viewers about the brutality of "purification," it works equally well as a tribute to righteous defiance wherever it surfaces.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
As drama the film mostly serves to illustrate the two sides of this crucial social debate in Africa.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Phil Hall
Achieves the impossible in taking a genuine socio-political tragedy and turning it into an anvil drama which will fray the patience of the most sympathetic audiences.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Bill F. gave it a10:
Phenomenal. Humane and insightful.
Chad S. gave it a6:
Like Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", "Moolaade" is shot at a real location, but there's a self-conscious staginess that makes the village feel like it exists on a soundstage. Some of the cast members seem like unprofessional actors who would benefit from a neo-realist approach rather than have them emote as if they were in a play. The horror of female genitalia mutilitation was already formed in my mind, and nothing in "Moolaade" added to it. What this movie does do well is show how traditions in non-western cultures are overtly patriarchal and detrimental for women. The final image, showing how the infiltration of the west is a compromise that's beneficial for the progress of women's rights, is a flash of visual wit that ends a muddled film with an exclamation point.
Don gave it a10:
Masterpiece!
Eleanor M. gave it a7:
An important topic, and worth seeing for the subject matter. For me though, it is a story that would have been better told documentary style.
Frank P. gave it a 9:
Very thoughtful and beautiful exploration of village African life and it's customs. Important commentary on genital mutilation. All should see it.
