Le Petite Vendeuse le Soleil (Senegal, 1999)
Story of a disabled Senegalese girl that battles about her image and not caring about what anyone else things, as she starts selling newspapers on the streets of Dakar. (In English)
(43 minutes)
Discussion Questions:
1. You might start with the last scene screened, the final shots of La Petite Vendeuse de Soleil. Some viewers may find this an abrupt ending, dropping the story where a Hollywood film would bring it to a clearer resolution. Why do the vendors scatter as Sili Laam (the little girl) and Babou Seck (her helpful friend) approach and we only hear their footsteps? What is the meaning of Sili's final words in the film, "We continue?
2. You might next analyze the first scene or "prologue" to La petite vendeuse de Soleil, the arrest of the woman in the marketplace (and her subsequent release from jail). Viewers should first notice that the scene is staged rather like an arena: the market people are circled around witnessing the woman's humiliation. Significantly; they do nothing to supprot her; they just enjoy the spectacle. Is Mambety suggesting a parallel between themarket people with the actually vieweing audience and asking us to be more sympathetic and less detached?
3. The woman protests that she is "not a thief." She says that the country is crazy and that she is a displaced princess. Senegal is her land by right and, yet she has been rendered a beggar in it. Is she crazy or speaking the truth? Who is the real their -- the Senegalese poor or an international monetary system that callously devalues their currency?
4. Why has Mambety picked as the heroine of this film, a child, a female, a memeber of a despised social caste (Laam is often the name of those who handle animal skins - outcasets in many cultures) and a paraplegic? Is Mambety suggesting a compatison betwen Sili Laam'sdisabilities and the disadvantages of a capital-poor Africa trying to compete in the world market? Sili Laam has no resources but her energy and resiliency; she doesn't even have a boom boxd like the man in the wheelchair; she can't even walk as easily as teh other newspaper vendors.
5. How does Mambety characterize the world of the Dakar market where most of the film is set? Economists havge described a market economy as , "the war of all against all;" is this born out in the social relations of th epeole in th emarketplacfe? The boys do not relate to Sili Laam, as an equally needy co-worker, but merely as unneeded competition. Is Mambety drawing a parallel between their bullying and the way industrialized nations treat develoing nations in the world market?
6. Now that you've discussed how Mambety in La Petite vedeuse de Soleil makes the Dakar market into a metaphor for the global economy, you can see if he follows a so9,o;ar strategy in Le Franc. In what sense are Senegal and other poor nations caught in a flobal lottery symbolized by the arbtray CFA devaluation? Does playing the lottery represent hope or despair? Compare the lottery to Yadikoon's redistributive economic strategy and Sili Laam's economic program of self-reliance.
7. The last shot of Le Franc is even more ambiguuos than that of La petite vendeuse de Soleil. What do you think Marigo will do with his winnings? Will he invest in a business, try to live out his fantasies or share his gains with other poor people as Sili Laam did?
8. What does it mean that at the same time he finds the lottery ticket (or it washes up o his head) th eposter of Yadikoon sinks into the sea? Is Marigo laughin at his good fortune or at the absurdity of his situation? He sists as the waves crash over him (the first shot of the film is also the breakers). Do these waves symbolize dynamic change or hoopeless repetition?
9. In La petite vendeuse de Soleil the newspaper vendors cluster around a ferry dock marketed "Goree." Goree Island was one of the most famous "slave castles" in West Africa from where enslaved peopples were deported to the Americas. What is the relatioship of slavery to the marketplace?What does Goree represent for the thousands of African Americns who make a pligramage there? How might it have a different significance to the Senegalese?
10. When you see a film by Mambety most viewers immediately recognize that its style is unique But what makes it so? While the realism in the film exposes poverty and oppression, the folk tale aspects perhaps suggest fantastical ways of overcoming them (i.e little girls getting people released from prison, winning big with the lottery). Is the tension between realism and fable convincing or disturbing? What does Mambety suggest - through the character of Sili Laam - that we add to realism to achieve social change?
11. The last line of the film is a voice over: "The tale is thrown to the sea. The first to breathe it will go to heaven." At the end of this, his say it creates dreams, it has an energy and direction of its own...Audiences are free to take their own path to enter or to leave." Who ultimately determines the interpretation, fate, and social impact of a film?
