What does a radical filmmaker do when the energy of the New Wave is fading? He makes a film about the Virgin Mary and Joseph to provoke controversy from the Catholic Church.
So what does a radical filmmaker do when the verve of the New Wave is over? He makes Hail Mary, a film about the Virgin Mary and Joseph to provoke controversy from the Catholic Church.
Learn about slavery and indentured servitude in Guyana – the educational video style interruptions in the opening 30 minutes of Guiana 1838 will give you a quick understanding!
See what happened to freed slaves in Guyana
Witness the whole process of the Indian indenture system
If you think the British Empire is something to be proud of
The Breakdown
Guiana 1838 starts with 2 white men on horses patrolling a sugar cane plantation full of black workers. He singles out one of the workers for questioning. When he doesn’t get a response, he takes the black worker to the whipping pole.
At this point, the film jumps to one of a handful of educational-video style interruptions to teach you about the start of the slave trade. In a few minutes, it gives you a brief low-down on how it started, why it started, and a few of the figures calling for abolition.
Then, jumping back to the dramatisation, one of the younger slaves overhears a man from Britain telling the slave owner that slavery has been abolished. She runs back to her family to tell them the good news.
Again, the film jumps back to an educational slide-show to show you the slave owners solution: indentured servitude. This was a system which lasted until 1917 in which people from across the British Empire (and further afield) were contracted or tricked into cheap labour. Guiana 1838 follows a group of Indians that were ‘contracted’ to work in Guyana (effectively tricked into slave labour).
Conclusion and What to Watch Next
If you don’t know what indentured servitude is or you don’t know much about the Atlantic slave trade, you should watch Guiana 1838. It’s educational style may remind you of the historical enactment videos you watched at school so expect to learn a lot.
Even though slavery has shaped the world perhaps more than any other event, there haven’t been that many films to document it, especially compared to the excess of Hollywood westerns. That being said, here are some films you must see:
12 Years a Slave: the 2014 Best Picture Winner from Steve McQueen that doesn’t shy away from the reality of slavery
Sankofa: A Burkinabe film which provides a perspective of Maafa (the African Holocaust) that Hollywood rarely gets close to
Roots: The original iconic TV series based on Alex Haley’s novel featuring Kunta Kinte
Django Unchained: Yes, Tarantino’s film follows the ‘white saviour’ narrative and can be seen as insensitive, but where else can you see a film in which an ex-slave gets revenge on his white slave masters??
There is No Evil is made to be provocative in both the story structure and the content. Each of the four stories contains a mystery: we have to ask who the main character is and what they have done? Revealing their identity and actions is provocative as it shows how they’re linked to capital punishment and mandatory military service. None of the characters are what they initially seem.
Likewise the content is provocative. As mentioned, each story is linked to the death penalty and mandatory military service. But not just one of the other, as often the mandatory military service requires you to enforce capital punishment. Regular citizens are expected to follow orders and pull the stool from under those citizens deemed worthy of death. The director focuses on this to show how encompassing authoritarian rule is in Iran, and how blindly some people follow it. By showing how the state forces you to commit the absolute highest crime for it’s benefit, the director reveals that there’s nothing some citizens wouldn’t do to facilitate the authoritarian government in Iran.
There is No Evil is split into four parts partly for political/logistical reasons. Director Mohammad Rasoulof is currently banned from filmmaking in Iran and breaking the film into shorts made it easier to hide his name from the permits and delegate. However, breaking the film up into four sections also helps to expand the perspective of the film. Instead of focusing on one family in one singular feature, the four parts show the range of people and lives the death penalty affects. We see those who resist and those that follow the law, as well as family members and friends who can’t escape it. It shows that everyone can be implicated.
Whilst it shows people from both sides, the film appears to favor those who resist. This is shown in the openness of the worlds in each short, especially when comparing the first short to the last. In the first, we follow a father governed by his routines. He follows rules and chastises his wife for forgetting to do things by the book. Despite being free to go wherever he wants, his world feels narrow and restricted. A lot of the time he’s inside either a car stuck in traffic, or in buildings, and he works in a windowless room far underground in artificial light. So whilst he’s not an outcast to society, his world feels limited and bleak. In contrast, the outcast in part four has escaped from Iranian society. He’s been forced to live off the land far from civilization because he resisted. But his world also feels more free for it. His story is full of natural light and wide expansive shots of the landscape. His world feels more free despite his political status because he stood up for what he believed in. His spiritual freedom is reflected in his bright world. In him, the director shows he favors those who resist.
Head to our AFI Fest Hub for more reviews and short films from AFI Fest 2020.
Jebel Nyoka is a budget South Sudanese movie free to watch on YouTube that touches on the patriarchy and forced marriage. Itfollows a teenage girl living outside of the capital city in South Sudan. Conflict arises when her parents want her to get married instead of allowing her to finish her studies.
Disclaimer: whilst the audio quality is more consistent than other films shot with few resources such as The Hand of Fate, it does contain a very repetitive backing track. It sounds a bit like stock filler for an 80s educational show, and unfortunately is often played over the diegetic sound and dialogue of the movie regardless of the context of the scene (playing over a rape scene as well as over family conversation). So before watching this film, be prepared to fight an urge to mute the audio from time to time.
Jebel Nyoka does have honorable intentions in the screenplay though, which touches on both the patriarchy, the lack of resources for education, and underage marriage. Kiden, our teenage female protagonist has to deal with all these issues – fighting her family and their wish for her to get married instead of supporting her education. The film sides with her and a girl’s right to education by showing her fight against her parents and marriage. However, it feels blind to the power of the patriarchy it unwittingly presents. It positions Kiden’s mother as the villain of the movie – presenting her as the driving force behind Kiden’s underage marriage even though her father holds the position of power in the family. She has to talk to crouch down to talk to him sitting in his chair, and whilst the father agrees to marry their daughter, he blames her when things go awry for pushing him to do it. Jebel Nyoka is quick to blame the female characters for problems held in place by the patriarchy.
It also features a lot of male characters that take charge of Kiden’s life without considering her perspective. Her father is one example, as is her prospective husband, but even the male characters that are presented as ‘good’ take advantage of her. The head of the orphanage is a prime example of this. Whilst he takes her in and provides her with an education, he also ships her off to another family looking for another girl to help out around the house (ironically so their own daughter can focus on her own studies). This action is never questioned, and ultimately the adopted father and the head of the orphanage become the heroes of the film. The focus on portraying benevolence in the men of Jebel Nyoka undermines the positive female story the director tries to create.
Therefore, despite honorable intentions, Jebel Nyoka’s message feels a bit empty. It highlights problems within South Sudanese society (such as underage marriage, poverty and education) without examining their root cause. Instead of looking deeper into these issues, or making a film about Kiden’s perspective, Jebel Nyoka focuses on the men around her, making them the saviors of the movie.
What to Watch Next
For a film which examines the patriarchy from a female student’s perspective, we strongly recommend watching Dhalinyaro from Djibouti. It follows a group of three high school friends facing different problems at home as the exam season starts.
If you’re looking for more low budget African films that deal with the patriarchy and forced marriage, you could watch The Hand of Fate from The Gambia.
Or if you want to watch more African films about kids using their intelligence to find a way out of poverty, try The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.
Clara Sola is one of two Latin American films from 2022 that had a memorably anti-colonialist ending. The other, Bantu Mama, features a French-African tourist turned fugitive in the Dominican Republic that escapes to sanctuary in Africa after feeling a connection to her African roots. Clara Sola follows Clara’s awakening as she frees herself from conservative Christianity to embrace the indigenous roots of her powers.
Clara is imprisoned by a purple flag marked boundary around the small house she lives in with her mother and niece in the remote Costa Rican countryside. She’s closely protected by her mother for her miraculous god-given powers, that were apparently bestowed to her by an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Her fame for healing routinely brings people from across the country to her house for her blessings, as well as much needed donations that seem to be the main source of income for the three of them. At the beginning, Clara is content to follow her mother’s lead, staying within the purple flagged boundary marked for her and taking part in the religious ceremonies she’s the main attraction of. However, the arrival of Santiago prompts a sexual awakening that reconnects her to the true nature of her powers.
Colors are present from the start in the purple flags flying on the poles marking Clara’s boundary. In the opening scene, she’s beckoning her white horse named Yuca, to come to her from the other side of the boundary line. The natural white color of Yuca signify freedom, whereas purple signifies Clara’s confinement. It’s notable that the only other time purple appears in the film is after Clara tries to dye her pink dress blue, to match the blue quincenera dress of her niece. She’s trying to break free from the conservative baby pink (and her babying mother) to experience the freedom of the attractive blue dress of her niece, but ends up stuck with the same purple that marks her restricted world. It’s a moment in which she realizes that no matter how much she tries to be like her niece, she’ll never be her. It sets in motion her wish to escape.
Colors also confuse Clara. She’s drawn to both artificial and natural colors, even though both aren’t leading her in the right direction. The artificial colors of her niece’s blue dress draw her to Santiago and a ‘normal life.’ She’s pictured in the dress in her happiest moments with Santiago. However, like the artificial lights illuminating her smile as she’s driven home by Santiago one night, the blue dress symbolizes an unsustainable happiness. She’s only truly free in the moments she’s with nature – with natural colors – whether that be the lights of the fire-flies, the white coat of Yuca, or the greens and blues of the trees and river. The nature accepts her and understands her. They allow her to be free unlike the family and community that imprison her physically and spiritually.
In breaking free from her family and community, Clara breaks free from the conservative Christianity that imprisoned her, the descendant of Spanish Colonialism. In returning to the forest, she’s returning to her indigenous roots.
What to Watch Next
For more Latin American coming of age films, try Alba and Aurora. The former follow a daughter living with her single dad trying to navigate the awkwardness of puberty and school. The latter follows a pregnant teenager that finds support in a teacher. You can also try Ixcanul, which follow an indigenous woman in Guatemala.
Or for a dark, magical coming of age story in the vein of Black Swan, try Joachim Trier’s Thelma.
You must be logged in to post a comment.