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Sarraounia
Sarraounia
8.5
/10
131 Ratings

SARRAOUNIA

Directed by Med Hondo
Burkina Faso, Mauritania, 1986
Drama, History

Synopsis

West Africa, 1899. The French officers Voulet and Chanoine lead a mission of exploration at the head of a column of colonial troops. Going beyond their orders, they engage in massacres of the population. Only Sarraounia, the legendary queen of the village of Lougou, decides to resist them…

Synopsis

West Africa, 1899. The French officers Voulet and Chanoine lead a mission of exploration at the head of a column of colonial troops. Going beyond their orders, they engage in massacres of the population. Only Sarraounia, the legendary queen of the village of Lougou, decides to resist them…

Our take

Reconfiguring the visual language of the western to trace the freshly-drawn scars of imperial conquest, Med Hondo’s magnum opus revivifies an infamous chapter in African history. With its dynamic battle sequences and striking use of colour, Sarraounia is a blazing epic of anticolonial resistance.