What it’s about
Banished from her tribal village for the crime of adultery, Linguerre (Diakhate) returns 30 years later a wealthy woman. She offers to free the community of its financial misery in exchange for the life of the feckless man, Dramaan (Diouf), who betrayed her long ago, now a kindly and very popular dry-goods merchant.
Why we love it
Loosely based on Friedrich Durrenmatt's stage play “The Visit,” Mambety's parable of greed and revenge has a bitingly funny edge as it reveals the height of human folly in a remote desert world. It's not hard to see that Mambety feels capitalism has toppled traditional values in Senegal, for the worse. (Frequent shots of hyenas encircling the town perfectly underscores his point.) Linguerre is not just affluent, she's the richest woman in the world, and her justice is cruel. But it's the avarice of the townspeople on which Dramaan's fate will ultimately hinge.