El Hadji: My child, you don't need anything? [he searches his wallet]
Rama: Just mother's happiness [she then walks out of the frame as the camera lingers on the map]
What Sembene is saying to us is quite direct and no longer inaccessible. On one level, Rama shows concern for her mother — it occupies a place of meaning in the dialogue. On another level, when we consider the African map which occupies the same screen space as Rama, her concern becomes not only her maternal mother but “Mother Africa”. This notion carries an extended meaning when we observe the shot of El Hadji — to his side we see a large colonial map of Africa.’
Teshome Gabriel, Third Cinema in the Third World: the Aesthetics of Liberation (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982), pp.83-84.