Poor exposure quality sometimes hampers this excellent hand-made feature about the life of a single mother in Mali. In her region there are no motor vehicles and no telephones. The whole area seems pretty barren and she is struggling with troublesome sons and a wayward daughter. No one will let them have so much as a bowl of meal.
So, our heroine heads off to talk to all the contacts she knows, including the ones "from Satan". Finally, she thinks of her early suitor, a man who still values her, and he lets her have a fine donkey. She immediately uses it to fetch a skin of water and sell it to various itinerant customers. At last, she has a bag of meal and brings it back to her family. This stately circuit of hers is a powerful second act.
After an initial scare with her helpless husband, during the night she has a significant dream that we share with her. In the morning she finds that her daughter has turned over a new leaf: the pot is on the fire, and the young woman is off on the donkey selling water. It's a happy ending to a unique film, made on a shoe-string, but beautifully thought through and true-to-life. It's actually about the director's mother. What a gem this is, and no one on IMDb has ever seen it!
So, our heroine heads off to talk to all the contacts she knows, including the ones "from Satan". Finally, she thinks of her early suitor, a man who still values her, and he lets her have a fine donkey. She immediately uses it to fetch a skin of water and sell it to various itinerant customers. At last, she has a bag of meal and brings it back to her family. This stately circuit of hers is a powerful second act.
After an initial scare with her helpless husband, during the night she has a significant dream that we share with her. In the morning she finds that her daughter has turned over a new leaf: the pot is on the fire, and the young woman is off on the donkey selling water. It's a happy ending to a unique film, made on a shoe-string, but beautifully thought through and true-to-life. It's actually about the director's mother. What a gem this is, and no one on IMDb has ever seen it!
