Black
Girl (1966) (***1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
Diouanna is offered a job in France to become a caretaker
for a household. When she was hired, the impression was given
that she’d be mostly taking care of the kids. However,
once she arrived from Dakar, Senegal, she found herself cooking
and cleaning with the children no where to be found. This deceit
is just the beginning as her relationship with the Madame of
the house quickly sours. Diouanna attempts to deal with the
increasing insults and backlash thrown in her direction, but
how much can she really take?
Beneath the surface of this relatively simple story is a rich,
complex, emotional narrative. Writer/director Ousmane Sembene’s
feature debut is possibly the least flashy film you’ll
ever see, but that just means there’s nothing to take
your attention away from the compelling character interactions
and introspections brilliantly and thoughtfully presented before
us. The camera may remain stagnant, but it’s positioned
and framed in such a way to give the apartment that Diouanna
spends all her time in a claustrophobic feel. The lack of set
design might have spurred from what can only be assumed was
a very low budget, however the resulting drab, boring walls
give us a subconscious understanding of how she feels about
her surroundings and act as a stark contrast to the more active
and lively locations seen in the flashbacks to her days in
Senegal.
The only problem with the low budget is that the audio is
greatly affected. Sembene uses a non-synch sound camera, but
is able to skirt the issue somewhat by making sure that most
of the dialogue is either narrated or is spoken off-screen.
There are times when it cannot be, and unfortunately, those
scenes suffer slightly because of it. Also the lack of sound
effects is very noticeable at times and might occasionally
seem unusual.
Still, despite the quality of the recording, the message of
the dialogue comes across loud and clear. You have two very
different types of strong women essentially battling each other
while the ignored husband attempts to be the voice of reason.
Diouanna’s growing disillusionment and disappointment
and isolation turns into rebellion against a woman that she
thought was trust-worthy and kind. Mbissine Thérèse
Diop’s performance as Diouanna is engaging and absolutely
pitch-perfect. She handles the difficult subject matter flawlessly
in what, on the visual side, has to treated like a silent film.
Sembene dives right into some important issues without making
the film seem political. This is one of the rare gems that
can be dissected in myriad ways to uncover layer after layer
of meaning, and they’d probably all be right. I’ll
leave that to the theorists. As for my critic self, I saw a
fantastic, well-constructed low-key film with great music and
a phenomenal lead character in a fascinating storyline. Surely
an important piece of African film history.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
|