Could see how watching this in a film studies class, or in conjunction with reading about Sembene (or even his story that spawned this) would make for a completely different experience.

Of the three films by him I've seen so far, "Borom Sarret" was the one that resonated the most. This film I think takes a similar tack, but the main character here is so hapless, that it feels his doomed fate like his domed pate, are inherent in his character. The wagon master in that short just seemed noble and just, and ends up just royally screwed.

Here good fortune on paper turns to bad luck in person, and everyone seems to be on the scam. The imam and his posse, the double-dipping beggar lady on the street, the wives, the photographer. And as in "Borom" ultimately the wealthy just screw over the impoverished while making a grand false gesture on par with grand larceny. I could see it as satire (as the poster indicates), but the situation came across so dire it just made me think of people on ever continent caught in debt spirals.

The relationship of the wives (count 'em two) to the agonizing protagonist is not really explored but fascinating to me, never mind the seven children. It almost begs its own very different film, but this film is more about the tiers of people on the take. And the crazy within bureaucracy. An idea that is not so foreign as the setting for this film. Sadly...