{"product_id":"xala-paperback","title":"Xala - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJames S. Williams\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eXala\u003c\/i\u003e (1974) by the pioneering Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene, was acclaimed on its release for its scorching critique of postcolonial African society, and it cemented Sembene's status as a wholly new kind of politically engaged, pan-African, auteur film-maker. Centring on the story of businessman El Hadji and the impotence that afflicts him on his marriage to a young third wife, \u003ci\u003eXala\u003c\/i\u003e vividly captures the cultural and political upheaval of 1970s Senegal, while suggesting the radical potential of dissent, solidarity and collective action, embodied by El Hadji's student daughter Rama and the group of urban 'undesirables' who act as a kind of raw chorus to the affairs of the neocolonial elite.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJames S. Williams's lucid study traces \u003ci\u003eXala's\u003c\/i\u003e difficult production history and analyses its daring combination of political and domestic drama, oral narrative, social realism, symbolism, satire, documentary, mysticism and Marxist analysis. Yet from its dazzling extended opening sequence of revolution as performance to its suspended climax of redemption through ritualised spitting, \u003ci\u003eXala\u003c\/i\u003e presents a series of conceptual and formal challenges that resist a simple reading of the film as allegory. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHighlighting often overlooked elements of Sembene's intricate, experimental film-making, including provocative shifts in mood and poetic, even subversively erotic, moments, Williams reveals \u003ci\u003eXala\u003c\/i\u003e as a visionary work of both African cinema and Third Cinema that extended the parameters of postcolonial film practice and still resounds today with its searing inventive power.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJames S. Williams\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor of Modern French Literature and Film at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His previous publications include \u003ci\u003eSpace and Being in Contemporary French Cinema\u003c\/i\u003e (2013); \u003ci\u003eEncounters with Godard: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics\u003c\/i\u003e (2016); \u003ci\u003eEthics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema: The Politics of Beauty\u003c\/i\u003e (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), winner of the R. Gapper Prize for the best book in French Studies; and \u003ci\u003eFrantz Fanon\u003c\/i\u003e (2023).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 112\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.25 x 7.46 x 5.39 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 02, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42695632355391,"sku":"9781839025983","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0105\/8226\/1823\/files\/3407556b991fd062f01e4ffb68e1c944.webp?v=1765004496","url":"https:\/\/dhl-adrianne.myshopify.com\/products\/xala-paperback","provider":"BBB","version":"1.0","type":"link"}