Country: Burkina Faso
Director: Fanta Régina Nacro
Time: 33 minutes
What It Evokes: Marital troubles, humorous liaisons, ambiguous solidarities in patriarchal contexts
Where Can I Get It: Criterion (free w/subscription)
In the opening shots of Puk Nini, Fanta Régina Nacro’s delightful and masterful short film, a young girl watches a video recording of her parents’ wedding. Those parents, Salif and Isa, are madly in love (on both screens). And why not? They’re two good looking young professionals who wear nice clothes, own a lovely home, and have a beautiful daughter who perhaps watches a little bit too much television, but otherwise seems to be doing great. Excitement comes in the form of eagerly examining a new washing machine they’re about to purchase, as well as much kissing, cooing, and PDA. All things considered, they’re living the dream. Except this is film, so copious amounts of early affection rarely augur well for happy couples. And since it’s a short film, the descent comes quickly.
Leveraging humor to engage some rather serious subjects, Puk Nini explores male infidelity and (somewhat attenuated) forms of female solidarity in Burkina Faso. Salif and Isa’s marital difficulties begin after Astou, a beautiful Senegalese woman, arrives in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, and captures Salif’s attention. In fairness to Salif, though perhaps not to the gender he comes to represent, every man who meets Astou succumbs to her powers of seduction. This works great for Astou—she gets continually showered with gifts and affection—until eventually it doesn’t. In the process, it leaves a number of the city’s wives none too pleased.
The seductive outsider, Astou embodies the prototypical cocotte, mercenary in her affections and cynical in her understanding of men’s desires. (No amorous interaction comes without requesting a debt be paid or a piece of clothing be purchased. As she likes to say, “Those who taste exotic dishes shouldn’t fear the peppers.”) Unhappily for Isa, Salif immediately succumbs to her charms—there goes that washing machine! Subsequently, Isa’s despondence leads her to pursue some rather dubious stratagems designed to lure him back. Alas, the heart wants what the heart wants—which need not coincide with what’s good for it. In its magisterial way, the film does end with a reconciliation of sorts, though between Astou and Isa: a contorted solidarity built on different female experiences in a patriarchal world, but a form of solidarity nonetheless. Throughout the work, two issues confronting Burkina Faso’s women hover in the background: AIDS and polygamy—the country has the highest rate of polygamous households in sub-Saharan Africa—each of which shape experiences of womanhood, marriage, and domesticity. It’s a grand, deft, smart, and subtle film.
The first female director of a narrative film in Burkina Faso, Fanta Régina Nacro has been justly celebrated for her many wonderful short works, which have explored women’s lives through lenses of marital stress, education, and sexual practices in an age before PrEP and accessible antiretroviral medications. (She made her first feature length film in 2004 after working exclusively in the short form for years.) Throughout, her work has engaged difficult topics with generosity and mirth, transforming subject matter liable to heavy-handed treatment into compelling film that avoids the morally obvious (and thus predictably dull), while grounding rich social observations in singular depictions of quotidian life. To riff on that old compliment concerning “wearing one’s learning lightly,” Puk Nini wears its insights with the lightest of touches, employing a jazzy soundtrack and prurient comedy in order to merge the fraught and frivolous, while avoiding the overwrought.
In interviews, Nacro has spoken about her desire to increase the size of African film audiences through her works. Given Puk Nini’s commitments, expanding viewership emerges a political act premised on film’s ability to persuade. In some ways, I think this explains Nacro’s bracing use of humor. After all, persuasion rarely benefits from arguments absent a reflective consideration of audience—and Nacro’s films are clearly meant to be screened for audiences with views different from her own. Puk Nini challenges not through direct confrontation, but through invitation: satirizing the familiar in order to excavate the nefarious social expectations that structure everyday life. As a result, Salif emerges more oaf than evil—his putative authority erased by complete subservience to his own sexual desire. A marabout—a Muslim religious sage—visited by Isa offers (rather invasive) remedies that appear ridiculous to all involved. Humor undercuts power (as it always has) by hollowing out its claims to deference. The socially-sanctioned knowledge givers may, it turns out, not have much on offer. In turn, laugh lines become a delivery mechanism for political statements. It’s the equivalent of rhetorical best practices, aimed at persuasion instead of the reinforcement of shared beliefs—itself a luxury unavailable to many filmmakers operating in challenging contexts.
As a medium, short films naturally distill narratives down to core elements, often employing a central metaphor buttressed by rich symbolism. Nacro remains a master of the genre, peppering imagery throughout in order to contour meaning, while maintaining generative forms of ambiguity. The washing machine Salif promises Isa—metaphor for easy domesticity and alleviation of womens’ household chores—never materializes. Salif’s name, which literally translates as “predecessors” in Arabic and refers to the early followers of Muhammad (role models par excellence for contemporary Muslims), underscores society’s rampant hypocrisy. As Astou pulls into Ouagadougou in a taxi, she rolls past a sign reading NovaAfrica. Isa and Salif’s VHS wedding tape emerges nothing more than an image of happiness—perhaps a comment on film itself?—broadcasting its artificial emotions and setting unrealistic expectations. Puk Nini doesn’t linger on these metaphors. Instead, they appear and disappear without calling overt attention to their own presence. As a result, a subtle accretion of symbols reinforces the work’s central themes without dominating its interpretation.
It has always seemed to me that the primary challenge confronting short filmmakers rarely has to do with saying too little. Frequently, duration constraints force works into overwrought and predictable central metaphors—many short films can feel like drastically truncated feature length works that have sacrificed character on the alter of some central plot device. By contrast, Nacro’s work forges lapidary-like delineations of subjects, while relishing playful ambiguity. Mouthpieces for various views remain totally absent. Characters take the world as it is and adapt. Survival strategies are rarely ideal, and never idealized.
And ambiguity does mean ambiguity. By film’s end, Astou and Isa have forged a relationship of sorts, though it remains quite mercenary in its way. Lessons shared concerning how to “keep a man” only reinforce already low expectations. Salif remains unreformed. The couple’s daughter has all but disappeared from the equation. This isn’t society transformed, but reflected: art following life and gingerly commenting upon it. Like all fascinating film, Puk Nini’s central message remains contestable, even if its commitments do not. It’s a complex work about serious stuff laundered through a delightful romp. And it has a lot to say.
Go Down The Rabbit Hole With:
Fanta Régina Nacro — A Certain Morning (1992)
Fanta Régina Nacro — Konaté’s Gift (1997)