Bal poussière

Early in the film one character (ironically, male) says, "all men are the same; only their money makes them different", and the maxim certainly applies to the leading citizen (in his own mind, at least) of a small African town where all men are lechers, fools or, in his instance, both. He's a rich, harmless buffoon who, with true middle class vanity, calls himself 'Demi-God', and has five wives to praise his name, until settling his amorous gaze on what he hopes will be number six: a sassy, independent city girl thought by the rest of the town (because of her education) to be wild. The lingering French influence on culture and comic impulse can be seen in the elements of bedroom farce and sexual exhibition (the English title - "Dancing in the Dust" - is Demi-God's euphemism for lovemaking). But with such lightweight commercial charm (including a novel method of preparing coq-au-vin, by taking a live chicken and pouring wine down its throat) the film certainly won't strike a blow for African women in the battle of gender aggression.