Starring Fatoumata Coulibaly. In Jula/Bambara and French with English subtitles. Unrated. Plays Thursday to Saturday, March 24 to 26, at Pacific Cinémathíƒ ¨que.

The most courageous kind of political cinema takes Walt Kelly's wisdom to heart and bluntly admits that "we have seen the enemy and he is us". Foreign foes are relatively easy; it's the ones that live in our hearts that are hardest to defeat.

Ousmane Sembene has always been a gutsy filmmaker, but never before has he stuck out his neck as far as he does in his latest feature, Moolaadé. Not even Ceddo, the Senegalese director's 1977 historical epic about the coming of Islam to sub-Saharan Africa,was as risky as this all-out assault on the most toxic forms of African machismo. The personal bravery that allowed him to survive Free French service during the Second World War and which later-after physical injuries prevented him from continuing to work as a longshoreman-enabled him to reinvent himself, as first a celebrated author and then a successful cineaste, here allows him to take dead aim at genital mutilation and all the suffering this perverted tradition entails.

Considering the seriousness of the subject matter, the tone of Moolaadé is surprisingly light. This is partly the result of extraordinarily limpid cinematography, perfectly chosen locations, and a truly magnificent musical score.

Success is even more dependent, however, on the film's almost Brechtian presentation of the facts.

When a strong-minded village woman named Collé (Fatoumata Coulibaly) decides to protect four young girls from the horrors of sexual excision and infibulation-an often-fatal procedure that is euphemistically described as "purification" but is better known as female circumcision-her friends and neighbours must reexamine their attitudes toward this time-sanctioned custom.

On one side, we have the male village elders and the red-robed women who make their livings hacking away at half-formed vulvae; on the other, there are the women who have undergone this operation themselves and the men who might, just might, be willing to marry someone who wasn't "cut".

During the course of this campaign, several children will die tragically, while a man who stops a husband from whipping his wife in public is murdered for his pains. Nevertheless, Moolaadé ends on a triumphantly upbeat note, uttering a rhetorical cry of hope that momentarily transcends the quotidian cruelties of West African life.

Ousmane Sembene is now 82 years old, but his soul gets younger all the time.