Abstract
ABSTRACT: Djibril Diop Mambéty’s 1994 film Le Franc explores experiences of disruption and powerlessness caused by monetary devaluation. This paper examines the cinematic grammars of Mambéty’s film as they relate to currency devaluation. The CFA franc was devalued by 50 percent on January 12, 1994. The devaluation, imposed on countries in the franc zone, represents an instrument of financial control that restrains their monetary sovereignty, perpetuating vestiges of imperialism. Analyzing Mambéty’s cinematic language, I offer a reading of his film through these economic structures. He works against the forms of temporal disruption introduced by processes of financialization in general and by the devaluation in particular. Ultimately, by embracing the future-past tense, Mambéty reaches into a future that has still yet to come, wresting comedy and even hope out of intolerable economic and social realities and offering a radical vision of possibility in the midst of degradation.
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