Cinema
Faces of Women
Visages de femmes
Désiré Écaré · 1985
Synopsis
In Ivory Coast, the fates of three women answer one another. In the village, N'Guessan, whom her husband watches jealously, lets herself be seduced by his younger brother. Fanta learns karate to stand up to her husband's jealous rages. In Abidjan, Bernadette, who trades in fish, sees the profits of her business go to her in-laws and, with no property of her own, tries to obtain a bank loan. Women's songs and dances link the stories.
Context
Filming, begun in 1973, had to be interrupted for lack of funds, and the film was not completed until the mid-eighties; the critic Nick Davis notes that its two stories seem to have been shot ten years apart. Presented at the Critics' Week at Cannes, it was released in France on 26 June 1985; a long love scene by a river led to its being banned in the filmmaker's own country. A 4K restoration, completed in 2021, brought it back to French cinemas in 2022.
Who it is for
A film lasting one hour forty-five minutes, in French and Adioukrou, in colour, made up of separate stories linked by a chorus of women singers.
Prizes and reception
International Critics' Prize at Cannes in 1985; it drew more than one hundred and thirty thousand spectators in Paris.
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