Xala
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Synopsis
An adaptation of Ousmane Sembène’s own 1973 novel, Xala is a hilarious, caustic satire of political corruption under an inept patriarchy. On the night of his wedding to his third bride, government official El Hadji (Thierno Leye) is rendered impotent and begins to suspect that one of his other wives has placed a curse on him. After seeking a cure from a local marabout, El Hadji must face the possibility that he deserves the infliction for his part in embezzling public funds and for helping to keep Senegal under French control. Adeptly combining elements of African folklore and popular cinema, Sembène indicts the hubris, entitlement, and opportunism of male authority figures.
Picture 9/10
Ousmane Sembène's Xala comes to Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection, included on the second dual-layer disc in Criterion’s box set Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène. The 1080p/24hz high-definition encode is sourced from a new 4K restoration taken from a scan of the 35mm original camera negative and is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.66:1.
Xala’s presentation is probably the strongest of the three films, though only by a hair, and that comes down a bit more to encoding. While not perfect, macroblocking isn’t an issue like it was with Emitaï, and the grain looks better overall. The image is also razor-sharp most of the time, revealing a wonderful level of detail at its best, with a great film texture present.
As with the other films, colors do lean teal, but it’s not oppressive and it doesn’t negatively impact the image. Whites still look white, and black levels are strong. A handful of shots seem to come from an alternate source, possibly an interpositive, and these sequences take on a far heavier yellow tint compared to the rest of the film, something akin to what Ritrovata might do, but then it quickly reverts. Colors overall are bright and vibrant, with reds, blues, and violets being particularly striking when they appear.
The restoration work, as with the other films, has been very thorough. Outside of those dupey-looking shots, detail levels are always high, and the image is clean and stable. Only a few rather large imperfections remain, the most notable being a stain that appears on the right-hand side, shaped like the perforations in the film stock. Beyond that, there isn’t much else of note. It’s a sharp-looking presentation.
Xala - Screen Captures
Audio 6/10
Similar to the other films, the lossless PCM monaural soundtrack doesn’t show any obvious signs of damage aside from some background noise, but it is still a bit flat with limited range.
Extras 0/10
Criterion’s set only includes a couple of features, none of which appear on this disc. That’s right, despite Xala possibly being one of Sembène’s better-known films, there is absolutely nothing on here. Zilch. Zip. Zero.
Closing
Despite being one of Sembène’s better-known films, Xala receives no special features. At the very least, the presentation looks excellent.
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