Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam, dir. Mambar Pierrette. 2023. 93 minutes. French with English subtitles. Vimeo. No price reported.

In Mambar Pierrette, the image of a mannequin draped in fabric is a hauntingly effective metaphor for the film's central concern.The film highlights the resilience of women, their enforced voicelessness and their capacity to endure the contortions imposed upon them by a society that renders them both decorative and disposable.The protagonist and other women in her community must "wear" the weight of poverty, cultural constraints, and gendered burdens, shaped and reshaped by external forces beyond their control.The film, with a quietly devastating realism, uses the modest life of a seamstress in the heart of Douala's ghetto to expose the undercurrent of suffering and endurance that defines the lives of working-class African women.The plot revolves around Mambar Pierrette, a mother, daughter, and seamstress whose daily routines show the pressures of survival.She lives with her two children and an invalid mother in a modest home constantly threatened by poverty and environmental vulnerability.As the school term approaches, Mambar and her younger son strive to gather money for school supplies.This seemingly simple goal becomes a Sisyphean struggle, complicated by systemic neglect, financial precarity, and unexpected disasters.Her son saves from his meager earnings while Mambar scrapes together her wages, only to be robbed on her way home.Later, a flood destroys the school materials she had managed to secure through her aunt.These cascading misfortunes reveal the fragility of life for the urban poor, where a single setback unravels months of hard-earned progress.Mambar herself is a complex and compelling character.Though she does not overtly lament her condition, her silences are heavy with meaning.She listens more than she speaks, allowing others to unburden themselves.Her shop becomes a space of communal exchange, where the private and political blur.One friend returns from Guinea, revealing she was almost lured into a sex trafficking ring under the pretext of obtaining travel papers to the UK.Another customer urges Mambar to attend a political rally to collect 2,500 francs, a gesture she vehemently rejects as exploitative and pointless.Her refusal to endorse such performative political rituals underscores her acute awareness of the systemic failures that disproportionately burden and disenfranchise women.The film subtly critiques the absence of state infrastructure in the lives of ordinary citizens.The lack of reliable support, whether in the form of social welfare, public education resources, or housing protection, forces women like