Chef! by Jean-Marie Teno

Chef! dealt with the patriarchal system in place in Cameroon, both in cities and in rural societies. The film is an look at the role of the chief as a model in all spheres of society. One of the first things I noticed, just as Teno’s voiceover narration pointed it out, were the European beer ads which stood out against the straw huts of the Cameroonian village. When a young boy is caught stealing some chickens from a neighbor, a group of men gathers around him to decide the best form of punishment. Most suggest beating him, but one man steps in to prevent him. Interestingly, he wore a bright pink and blue striped scarf over a traditional, tribal-patterned shirt. I think, perhaps without meaning to, the man's clothing and the modern beer advertisements definitely highlighted the rise of globalization and the permeation of a mass consumer culture. The film also highlighted political corruption, and the ease with which one can buy freedom with money. I thought that the emotional climax of the movie was when a former prisoner described the conditions inside a Cameroonian jail. He described their one meal a day, which was a handful of corn, and pictures were shown of row after row of emaciated bodies, of thousands of men with visible rib cages and swollen bellies lying on the floor packed tight against each other. It was extremely powerful, and for me almost reminiscent of images from the Holocaust. During a wedding scene, we learn that one of the marriage laws in Cameroon directly define the man’s role as the “chief” of the family. Another states, “If the husband strikes the wife while visitors are present, she must smile and pretend that nothing has happened." Teno asks, in a population of 14 million, what happens when 7 million are chiefs? Who is the chief of all of these chiefs? I thought this was a poignant, poetic look at a country dealing with its “awkward heritage” and many of the sad truths that are a result of that.