Ceddo
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Synopsis
In precolonial Senegal, members of the Ceddo (or “outsiders”) kidnap Princess Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye) after her father, the king, pledges loyalty to an ascendant Islamic faction that plans to convert the entire clan to its faith. Attempts to recapture her fail, provoking further division and eventual war between the animistic Ceddo and the fundamentalist Muslims, with Christian missionaries and slave traders from Europe also playing a role in the conflict. Banned in Senegal upon its release, Ceddo is an ambitious, multilayered epic that explores the combustible tensions among ancient tradition, religious colonization, political expediency, and individual freedom.
Picture 9/10
The third film in Criterion’s latest box set, Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène, presents the filmmaker's historical drama Ceddo on a dual-layer disc in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation is sourced from a new 4K restoration, scanned from the 35mm original camera negative.
In line with the other presentations in the set, Ceddo looks surprisingly good, despite a handful of minor inconsistencies. The restoration work is once again impeccable, cleaning up the film to such a degree that it could be mistaken for having been filmed recently. However, a few larger blemishes remain, the most glaring being red stains that appear on the right-hand side of the frame in a few shots, likely originating from a later-generation print. These imperfections probably couldn't be fixed without negatively impacting the picture in other ways.
Beyond that, the image is clean and stable. The base scan has captured as much detail as possible, right down to the fine grain, which is rendered sharply. The encode does a solid job with the grain, though a few moments can look a bit buzzy. This is one of the more colorful films, and the colors pop nicely, even with a light teal push similar to the other films. However, this doesn’t significantly impact the whites or the black levels.
All around, it’s another sharp-looking presentation in the set.
Ceddo - Screen Captures
Audio 6/10
Like the other films, the lossless PCM mono soundtrack is fine, though limited. There’s no notable damage aside from a background hiss, which is a bit heavier than in the other films. However, it remains flat with limited fidelity and range.
Extras 3/10
For this title, Criterion only includes a 27-minute documentary made by Sembène’s friend and fellow filmmaker, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, aptly entitled The Making of “Ceddo.” It features plenty of behind-the-scenes footage that proves interesting, including seeing how jovial things appeared to be on set, refuting the film’s darker tone, alongside some fun test footage of some of the film’s effects. But the real gem here is the insightful set of interviews with Sembène, the director sitting at the editing table as he works on the film.
Despite its brevity, the documentary impressively delves into Sembène's intentions behind the film and his filmmaking philosophy. While it was nice to get something that was specific to the film in question, the lack of any other academic material still proves incredibly underwhelming.
Closing
It is another solid presentation, but the lack of other features outside the (decent) making-of is maddening.
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