Black Girl

Black Girl (1966)

*** (out of 4)

Impessive feature from Ousmane Sembene about a black woman (Mbissine Therese Diop) from Senegal who goes to live in France as a servant but soon begins to feel the abuse of her "owner." Some people have called BLACK GIRL one of the greatest films ever made but I'm going to fall well short of that type of praise. With that said, there's no question that the film has a pretty strong message and gets its across without having to preach or wag fingers in the viewers face. Some people have complained about the look and style of the picture but I personally thought this was one of the highlights. I really liked how the thing almost came across as a documentary as we often just see the woman as she is working or being abused and then we hear her narration afterwards. I also liked how the flashbacks were used to give us more information about the woman and of course this leads us to the ending, which I'm not going to spoil for those who haven't seen the film. It's certainly a very effective one that will lead people to have their own views on what it actually means. I liked how the film isn't just about a black and white issues but there's also the issues of differences between people of different countries as well as a issue of money. Director Sembene does a very good job at telling the story and doing so in a rather original way. The performance from the lead actress is simply wonderful as is the supporting one from Anne-Marie Jelinek.

On the injustices one culture can do to another. The film is about an African woman who gets a job with a white family and agrees to follow them back to France, only to be disenheartened in the end. While, the production values were not great, the messages of this film are stronger than most major US motion pictures. The characters (especially the French) do seem to be a bit shallow, and don't have much depth to them. Yet, the theme of loneliness from displacement and cultural injustice ring powerfully loud in the end. An 8 out of 10.

In Senegal, you've been waiting for a chance, to find a job that will improve your circumstance, then you find one you enjoy, look after a girl, and two boys, for a family who originate from France. When the people then move back, to their homeland, you're summoned to join them, and lend a hand, now you're cook, cleaner and servant, a skivvy slave, toiling emigrant, no illusion of the one who's in command. You endure abuse, and the constant criticism, but your boss is so devoid of altruism, there's no escape, there's no away out, inside you scream and shriek and shout, the only option that remains, involves incision.

Black Girl presents an allegory for European colonialism in Africa through the lens of a Senegalese woman who secures a job in France. Sembene makes careful directorial choices to emphasize the contrasts between Senegal and France and the divide between Diouana's expectations for France and the reality. One of these choices is the use of nonlinear time - the film opens with her arrival in France and shows her interactions with Madame, then goes back in time to when she secured the job in Senegal. The striking difference between these two times is Diouana's attitude. In Senegal, when she is offered the job she is overjoyed at the opportunity, especially since it involves taking care of kids. However, when she gets there, she doesn't see the kids, is told to do all the work around the house, and is berated by Madame for being lazy. Seeing Diouana's frustrating situation is more resonant in only realizing afterwards how excited she was for the job going in. Her body language is a world apart, as in France she never smiles and has no energy but in Senegal was beaming when she got the job, and was so excited to see what France was like. I also like Sembene's choice to have her inner monologue as narration, as that further serves to put the audience inside Diouana's head. Her perspective is essential to understanding the way she is completely devastated by her experience, and from the first scenes of the film we are put in her point of view as we look out the window onto France through her eyes. Madame presented it as a great opportunity for her to make money and do what she enjoys - be with children - but then doesn't give her what she promised and by the time she does, her condescension and demands have sucked all the life from Diouana. You can interpret the symbolism of the film in many ways, and mine may change, but my impression now is that the film symbolizes the way Europe seemed to offer to help African countries but really just exploited them for all their resources, denied them the opportunity promised to give the next generation a better life, and then saw it as a surprising, random, unfortunate event when the countries are even worse off. The exploitation element is made explicit by Diouana's narration at the end, where she talks about being done being a slave. The mask is another interesting symbol in the film, one of African culture. We see how Diouana shares it with the family initially but they then appropriate it and treat it as their own, and at the end of the film Monsieur is haunted by it as the legacy of his sins. Really smart and well layered, and with a poignant ending, Black Girl is an excellent allegory.

The print I saw was a bit erratic and grainy, and included one jumpy sequence in color, whereas the rest was in black and white. This is the deceptively simple story of a woman from Senegal who joins a French family in France to be their nanny touches on many cultural, colonial, racial, and emotional issues, and if you look for easy answers, or answers at all, you'll be disappointed. There's a bit of French New Wave to the film, though it's really mostly African, featuring Senegalese music on the soundtrack. The only real flaw I see is that the story is told rather sketchily, with little in the way of clues as to the timing. Do the events take place over the course of a few days or weeks? The ending comes up so quickly that it feels a little forced, though not entirely unexpected.