Educational Media Reviews Online

Kounandi is a beautifully shot, spare but fully developed narrative film by Burkinabe director Apolline Traore. Its approach is that of a folktale, set in the simpler times of a pre-colonial Burkina Faso village society. The film functions as a pithy microcosm for numerous plots related to women’s issues, and then succeeds in poignantly relaying them. Apolline Traore has brilliantly stripped a typical 90 minute feature film of its superfluous narrative devices to expose a fairy tale about discrimination, love, acceptance and self-sacrifice. The film is also superbly crafted as the exquisite use of the camera works in tandem with the punctuation of the musical track.

Presenting an astute and at times humorous view of life in a small insular village and its treatment of a stranger, the film also undertakes to reveal the sometimes touchy and petulant relations between the sexes. Kounandi is taken in by strangers as her mother dies in childbirth. She grows up into a dwarf and must fend for herself after her drunken father kills her adoptive mother and evicts her. She is befriended by Karim, a kind and handsome man, who builds her a little house on his property. In gratitude and falling in love with him, she begins to bake flat cakes in a cast iron pan, the only memento she has of her birth mother. The cakes are delicious and a hit when she sells them in the village. But, the object of her affections has neglected to tell her about his ailing wife, Awa, and her return from a healer. As Awa is a poor cook, her jealousy towards Kounandi escalates. The film ends in an unexpected supernatural event which represents the ultimate sacrifice.

Kounandi is in Dioula with English subtitles and highly recommended. The film is also available in DVD from the distributor.