BLACK GIRL, 1966
Movie Review

A Senegalese woman is eager to find a better life abroad. She takes a job as a governess for a French family, but finds her duties reduced to those of a maid after the family moves from Dakar to the south of France. In her new country, the woman is constantly made aware of her race and mistreated by her employers. Her hope for better times turns to disillusionment and she falls into isolation and despair. The harsh treatment leads her to consider suicide the only way out.

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REVIEW:

Ousmane Sembene's 1966 film, Black Girl, brilliantly and harshly shows the exotification inherent in domestic slavery.

The titular character Diouana, is shown being taken away from hernative Sengalese life, and being deprived of her individuality as she works for a couple in France. From this point on, the film becomes an observation on how someone slowly loses everything they appreciate about life.

Sembene, much like Ozu's camerawork, is the quiet observer type, very unobtrusive, but very telling. So much careful emphasis is placed on Diouana, that you can see her spirit breaking frame by frame.

The magnificent camera work by Christian Lacoste plays through out the entire film as "the calm before the storm." This type of shooting only emphasizes the more emotionally resonant scenes.

The couple is clearly just taking pleasure in the fact that they have something exotic in their possession.This becomes painfully clear that Diouana becomes aware of this as well.

They end up fighting up over the mask, which becomes the most frenzied scene in the film, and the camera work depicts that here too - a necessary scene to make the jump from active to passive camera work.

Ultimately Diouana in the struggle, gets a hold of the mask... But to what avail? Watch this brilliantly crafted film that and see. Sembene let the world know there were entire regions of film that have voices that need to be heard...and he was the critically acclaimed first voice for Sub-Saharan Africa.

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BLACK GIRL