“What did I Eat?”: Misrecognition and the Neocolonial Picaresque in Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi and Mrinal Sen’s Interview

Abstract: While the international reach and political energy of the Third Cinema movement is widely acknowledged, its aesthetic modes and forms have received less attention. This essay hopes to provide such an understanding through a comparative analysis of two Third Cinema films—Mrinal Sen’s Interview (1971) and Ousmane Sembène’s Mandabi (1968). Using the category of the picaresque, the essay examines how neocolonial domination informs the postcolonial atmosphere in the two aforementioned works. It reflects on the economic and political aspects of Indian and Senegalese independence and then studies how the two films engage with their respective sovereign states and their colonial pasts within the affective realm of “cruel optimism.” Through an analysis of characterization, cinematography, and narrative arrangement, this essay unearths an array of similarities between these works, indicating a larger formal constellation through which Third Cinema works produced political meaning for their audiences.