Free Essay. Analytical Essay of Lead Female Character of The Movie Hyenas

The film Hyena shows a woman who is an adaptation of the movie "The Visit" where a woman buys a whole village to revenge on a lover who betrayed her decades ago. The film Hyenas is set in Africa, and it is a representation of the new political dimensions observed in the continent. It depicts the richest woman in the world, bringing Western stuff to the African village where she was born as a way of bringing to an end tribal culture.

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The character Linguere Ramatou is the woman in the movie who comes back to her village of birth 30 years after she disgracefully left (Lindo, 2010). At the time before she left, she was Dramaan's lover. She emerges 30 years later, being the richest woman in the world. The townspeople welcome her happily, hoping she will end the poverty they experience. In the movie, Ramatou announces that she will donate one hundred thousand million to the village if witnesses came forward to testify that 30 years ago, Dramaan paid them to swear they had slept with her so he could deny that he was the father to her child (Lindo, 2010). The greed among the people slowly shifted them to insisting that Dramaan sell them on credit.

From this, it is possible to identify transformative power representation. The town being a marginalized place, Ramatou, brings it to contact with the broader world. The people in the city were marginalized in the sense that they only did more for the evolution of the community. The coming back of Ramatou to the village exposes the villagers to modernity. He brings them gifts, power, adventure, growth, joy, and transformation to the modern world. At the same time, she threatens to destroy everything that the townspeople had when she tells them that they had to sell out those who accused her of sleeping with other men so that Dramaan could deny paternity to her unborn child. Modernity in the context of the movie Hyena threatens the unity of the people as they are divided between pleasing Ramatou for her money while others remain loyal to Dramaan. By focusing more on the ways Ramatou manipulates the people in the town, it is possible to identify the neoliberal economic policies in Africa. Ramatou uses her money to influence the people in the township, and she achieves this because most of the people were led by greed. It is the same thing experienced in most African countries, whereby leaders use their wealth to manipulate the poor.

The movie and the actions of Ramatou show how international financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, can be considered to be enemies of humankind. Ramatou attaches a condition when giving her money to the people of the town. Similarly, international financial institutions have requirements when providing grants that are more beneficial to the givers than to those receiving the donation. The film can, therefore, show that the receivers are morally corrupted by the offers they receive just as Ramatou managed to corrupt the villagers. The film shows how international financial institutions are set to destroy local entrepreneurship in Africa, which can then be replaced by foreign investment. Such acts endanger the freedom of the nation depicting the danger of economic globalization to African countries. The film and actions of Ramatou indicate how social values are cherished despite the tough situation in Africa and how cultural values can withstand the challenges that come with economic globalization.

Reference

Lindo, K. (2010). Ousmane Sembene's Hall of Men: (En)Gendering Everyday Heroism [Ebook] (4th ed.). Indiana University Press. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/ral.2010.41.4.109