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The Insult demonstrates just how powerful words can be. The trials between the Tony the Lebanese Christian and Yasser the Palestinian refugee are like the OJ Simpson trials on steroids.
From: Lebanon, AsiaContinue reading “The Insult (Lebanon) – Words Can Start Wars”
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Next: OJ Simpson: Made in America, Silvered Water, Ajami
Do you want to see one of Africa’s best films from the 20th Century? Set aside 55 minutes to watch Black Girl below (please comment if the video is not working). Don’t let film scholars be the only ones to have seen this incredible film as this should be seen by everyone.
Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl starts with a big passenger ship arriving at a port in France. A finely dressed black woman, Diouana, leaves the boat wondering if anyone will be there to pick her up. Sure enough a white man greets her, takes her bags, and drives her off. After a few jump cuts in the car ride (a style made famous in Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard) she arrives at a house on the French Riviera.
The opening suggests Diouana is here to meet her friends. Because of her nice dress and the white driver meeting her, it initially appears that she shares equal status with the white French people. However, as soon as she enters the apartment, it becomes clear that she does not share the same freedoms as her employers. She is kept in the apartment all day, every day to clean and cook and never ventures out because she never gets paid and is never introduced to anyone (which is always helpful when you don’t speak the language). As a result, she is almost a slave.
To get to know the film a little better, look out for the African mask. It first appears in the film when Diouana buys it from a small boy from her neighbourhood in Senegal. She then gifts it to her employer who first question it’s authenticity (‘it looks like the real thing’) and then hang it on one of their blank white walls in their apartment in France.
Firstly, the mask initially signifies equality between Diouana and her employer. The act of gifting implies that you share an equal standing with the person you give to. Initially, because of the gifting, Diouana is equal to her employer. However, when her employers dismiss the mask as a fake, they imply that Diouana cannot afford a real mask and therefore she is not on the same level as them.
Secondly, the mask is a metaphor for Diouana’s isolation in France. Like the mask hanging in the middle of a blank wall, she is alone and out of place in French society.
Lastly, the mask is a symbol of the misappropriation of African culture. In Africa the mask is alive as the young boy is shot playing with it and wearing it. However, in France, the mask is dead. In France, the mask has been reduced to an ‘exotic’ artifact which sits on a wall as a trophy of Diouana’s employer’s exoticism. It allows her employers to temporarily ‘play’ their ‘connection’ to African ‘exoticism’ without experiencing any of the discrimination they perpetrate. Just like a fancy dress that they can take off whenever they want.
When watching Black Girl you’ll notice that whilst Diouana doesn’t speak French, all her thoughts are narrated in French. Her consciousness has been taken over by a language that isn’t her own. She can’t physically speak French and therefore become equal to the French speakers in France, but she can think in French. In fact, French is the only language she actually thinks in via the narration.
This is symbolic of the legacy of French colonialism in Africa (in this case, Senegal). Although Senegal achieved it’s independence from France a few years before this film was made, by restricting Diouana’s consciousness to French Sembene emphasises the parasitic legacy of colonialism. The colonisers colonised Senegal and replaced it’s native culture with it’s own and disrupted Senegalese consciousness in the process.
There’s so much more to say! Simply put, Sembene’s Black Girl packs a lot into just under an hour. If it’s not being studied at schools across the world, it should be. Everyone needs to watch this film!
If you haven’t seen it, you’re in luck. Watch it here on YouTube!
This may well be the darkest comedy there is. You may not agree at first, but you probably will by the end of the film. And you’ll probably feel like a murderer for watching it! This is one of the ultimate mockumentarys!
You’ll get an idea of what kind of a film this is from the opening. It starts with what looks like a normal scene. A man on a train is standing by the window as a woman walks past him along the corridor. However, as the man moves out of the way to let her pass, he rings a rope around her neck, forces her into a cabin and strangles her.
As you’ll quickly realise, this is not a serious film. However, you also won’t be surprised that it was highly controversial when it was released in 1992 (two years before Natural Born Killers).
Straight after the brutal opening scene, we meet Benoit (the murderer) again. This time, he is talking to the camera and telling us how to properly ballast a corpse so it sinks. Remember, ‘you need to ballast a dead body with 3 times it’s body-weight, and 5 times for old people as their bones are even more porous’ (Benoit’s quote, not mine).
The mockumentary style (mock documentary) makes the film even more real. Benoit looks straight at the camera a lot, and therefore straight at us. As a result, we are forced to get close to him and pushed towards identifying with him. The intimacy is stretched even further as we are introduced to his family and friends, who all say what an ‘affectionate and sweet’ person he is. But every time we start to get comfortable with him the director reminds us of his violence. For example, in one scene he starts playing with a few kids in a park making him appear normal, but the director quickly cuts to a montage of him murdering innocent people to remind us that he is a murderer.
Man Bites Dog is provocative. But it’s also clever. It plays with us throughout the film, encouraging us to get close to a murderer before brutally showing us images that are undeniably wrong and shocking. There’s also a pretty meta commentary on both the moral obligation of the film-makers and the audience. Are the film-makers and us morally wrong for making/watching this film?
Either way, for more, I’d recommend checking out Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (with a young Woody Harrelson leading). Also check out Behind the Mask for a horror movie equivalent.
In Ixcanul, the volcano is a reminder of the power that nature holds over our lives. Follow Maria as she tries to find a way to escape from her rural community and the looming presence of the volcano.
Ixcanul starts with a close up of a teenage girl’s face. Her mum appears behind her and starts tidying her hair, cleaning her face, and tying her colourful head band. Maria (the teenage girl) looks blankly at the camera. It’s clear that she’s being prepared for something that’s out of her control. Is she getting married? Whatever it is, she seems too stunned to care.
The next scene flashes back to the two of them feeding rum to some pigs to make them horny. The girl waits around and watches the pigs as they copulate. It’s clear she’s bored. The only things she does at home is help her mum with the cooking and care for their livestock. Therefore it’s not a surprise that she finds another teenager that works nearby to have sex with.
The only problem is that her parents have just promised her hand in marriage to their boss. He’s the reason why they’re living in their house with the things they own as he’s the one renting it to them. So when her mum finds out Maria is pregnant she tells her off for ‘not counting her moons’ and puts together a plan to try and get rid of the baby.
Whilst the volcano never erupts, it’s power is always felt through the film. In every shot of the landscape, it looms in the background as if it is controlling their lives. In a way it is.
It is the wall that is blocking them from prosperity. On their side of the volcano, there is nothing, just barren land and boredom. But on the other side there is the United States and Guatemala City which both promise a better life. Just look at Maria’s fiance who travels to see them once every few weeks. He comes from the other side of the volcano and owns a car, the house Maria and her family live in, and is able to speak Spanish. He is obviously from the same part of Guatemala as her (as he also speaks Kaqchikel), and therefore the same lifestyle, but he has managed to find prosperity by venturing past the volcano.
Ixcanul has great cinematography and strong female characters ensnared by the power of the volcano. It is the blockade between their barren farm and a better life as on the other side is the city and the influence of the U.S. Can they make it to the other side?
If you want to see another film about a young kid/teenager trying to break the monotony of their life, check out Wadjda. It’s a coming-of-age story of a young girl in Saudi Arabia who is desperate to ride a bike, despite all the pressures on her to become a woman.
Or if you want to see more films about young adults trying to find a better life, check out:
Watching Tanna is an experience. It’s not everyday that you can transport yourself to another part of the world and another culture so far from our own. Unless you’ve got a one-way ticket to Vanuatu, this is the closest you’ll get to living in a Kastom tribe in a beautiful island.
The first thing you’ll notice in Tanna is the incredible setting. The whole film is filmed on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu and all the action takes place in and around the rain forest. Fortunately for us, the landscape includes picturesque waterfalls and an awesome volcano. It’s pretty much impossible to make the island look bad.
Life here is free. The kids run around chasing each other every day in their natural playground. Initially it seems like a life of no worries. However, unfortunately, you’ll learn that it life is not as free and romantic as it initially appears. Firstly, Selim, one of the youngest kids of the group, is told she has to grow up and become a woman. Secondly, when she is taken to visit her spirit mother, her Grandpa is beaten to death by a rival tribe. You’ll have to watch the film to find out the consequences.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this film is set before the arrival of Captain Cook and the western world. The tribal life on the island has none of the amenities we take for granted such as electricity, supermarkets, or mobile phones. However, even though they seem like they have never encountered Western culture, you’d be wrong if you thought they were completely cut off. In fact, one of the tribes’ members has a picture of himself with Prince Phillip of England dressed in a suit. Plus, there’s a christian camp with electricity, clothing, and regular houses just over the hill by their camp.
Why is it important that they are not cut off? Because it shows the strong and enduring legacy of tribal life. It shows that they have chosen to live life in the rain-forest even though they could switch to the ‘luxuries’ of western culture. It’s a great example of cultural relativism: the idea that all cultures should be understood individually and not judged against each other. No way of life or culture is better than another. However, unfortunately most of the cultures subject to western colonialism weren’t given a choice.
Tanna is beautiful. If you’re one of those who watched Avatar and felt depressed afterwards because our world wasn’t the same, then you might feel the same way after you watch Tanna.
But romanticizing aside, there’s a great story-line which draws parallels to a Shakespeare classic. And ultimately there’s a somewhat happy ending. That the indigenous culture of Tanna are managing to adapt whilst still opting to remain completely independent from Western culture.
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