BLACK GIRL (LA NOIRE DE...) (Sembene, 1966)
Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Jan 24, 2017
Review by Christopher S. Long
It's difficult to live up to a title
like “the father of African cinema” but Ousmane Sembene never
shied away from a challenge. Sembene blazed his own trail from a
grade-school dropout in the Casamance region of Senegal to
sharpshooter in the French colonial army to semi-literate dock worker
in Marseilles to published novelist en route to becoming one of the
world's most celebrated filmmakers. Whether or not Sembene was truly
the first sub-Saharan filmmaker to shoot and release a film
theatrically – Beninese/Senegalese director Paulin Soumanou Vieyra
has a valid claim on that distinction – he was indisputably the
major voice in African cinema in the years immediately following
independence (1960 for Senegal).
Critics may have applied the label “The
father of African cinema”, but Sembene embraced the
responsibilities that came with the honor: “I am the eyes and ears
and voice of millions of people.” He viewed his mission as vital
(“If Africans do not tell their own stories, Africa will soon
disappear”) and remained clearly focused on his homeland even as he
won ever-greater praise on the international film circuit: “Africa
is my audience; the West and all the rest are just markets.” His
career spanned forty years and tackled controversial issues such as
the complicated role of Islam in Africa, the exploitation of African
soldiers by the French colonial government, and the horrors of female
genital mutilation. His boldness led to struggles with both
censorship and financing, further exacerbated by his open embrace of
the Marxist influences that shaped his (self-)education.
Sembene's debut short film, “Borom
Sarret” (“The Wagon Driver”, 1963), adapted from his own short
story, reflects Sembene's class consciousness in part through a
protagonist who doesn't share it. The titular wagon driver
(non-professional actor Ly Abdoulay) identifies more with his
partly-mythologized ancestry than with his fellow citizens as he
makes his daily rounds through the streets of Dakar on a cart driven
by a horse named Albourah (the driver, unlike the horse, doesn't get
a name). In voice-over narration, the driver complains about the
cheapness of his various riders, looks down (literally, from a high
angle shot) on a crippled beggar, and fails to sympathize with a man
whose child has just died. Their problems simply aren't his. He is,
however, seduced by the ostensible trappings of success: first, by a
charming griot (a traditional African storyteller/musician) who
flatters with beautiful stories of a heroic past, and then by a
nattily-dressed businessman who cons our hero into a free ride.
In this first screen outing, Sembene
displays an obvious affinity for Italian neo-realism, most overtly by
having the driver wear a fedora similar to the one featured in
Vittorio de Sica's “Bicycle Thieves” (1948). “Borom Sarret”
observes the driver's daily routine in great detail and paints a
vivid portrait of a Dakar divided into the “white” section of
gleaming modern buildings high on a plateau and the lower elevation
“black” area of dirt roads and wooden homes. The driver's
constant bellyaching does not lead to any cathartic epiphany, with
the final scene promising little hope for a newly-independent Senegal
that is not, in Sembene's view, particularly close to actual
independence.
Shot a few years later, Sembene's debut
feature “Black Girl” (1966), also adapted from the director's own
story, displays an evolution in style. Though it's another film about
the daily life of a working class protagonist, “Black Girl”
displays a formal sophistication that points straight to Sembene's
training at the prestigious Gorky Film Studio in Moscow.
Title character Diouana (M'Bissine
Therese Diop, a teenage seamstress and art student making her film
debut) arrives in France from Senegal for a new job that doesn't
match her naïve fantasies. Back home in Dakar, she was delighted to
work for her white bosses, dancing in celebration near her home after
being “selected” at a street market, and reveling in the
opportunity to care for the couple's children. Diouana interprets an
invitation to return with the couple to France as something between a
promotion and a vacation, but soon learns that in “The Promised
Land” (the English title of Sembene's short story) she is seen as
nothing more than “the black girl” or, more properly, as “the
black girl of...” (“La noire de...) indicating her status as
property.
Sembene deftly emphasizes Diouana's
isolation; she marvels at the beautiful Riviera beach through the
window of the car that whisks her to her new home. Once there, she
will continue to see the beaches only through windows as her world
shrinks to little more than the kitchen and bathroom where she cooks
and scrubs for the increasingly imperious Madame (Anne-Marie Jelinek)
and the generally clueless Monsieur (Robert Fontaine). Nimble shifts
from low to high-angle shots establish the hierarchical structure,
but Diouana's refusal to be comfortably framed by this set-up
suggests that its foundation is crumbling, a sense augmented by the
journey of a traditional African mask from Senegal to France, then
back home.
“Black Girl” provides the first
evidence of Sembene's keen interest in the plight of African women.
He once stated that, “When women progress, society progresses”
and that if they do not, society cannot. That argument is somewhat
difficult to square with the events of “Black Girl,” but Sembene
definitely turns “the black girl of” into a full-fledged
character with agency and a developed inner life, related both in
French voice-over by Haitian singer/actress Toto Bissainthe and by
Diop's expressive face in strategic close-ups.
“Black Girl” won the Prix Jean
Vigo, and if it didn't quite sweep across a continent (Sembene often
bemoaned the miserable state of film exhibition in Senegal and other
nearby countries) it announced the full emergence of an eloquent new
voice in world cinema. For a brief period, Sembene was viewed more or
less as the global representative of all of African cinema, which, of
course, wasn't accurate at all. Thanks in part to his pioneering
efforts, other great directors like Djibril Diop Mambety and Safi
Faye (among many others) soon made their presence known, and Sembene
would have to settle merely for being “the father of African
cinema” instead of all of it.
Video:
“Black Girl” is presented in its
original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. From the Criterion booklet: “This new
digital transfer, undertaken by The Film Foundation's World Cinema
Project, was created in 4K resolution at the L'Immagine Ritrovata in
Bologna, Italy, on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the 35 mm original
camera negative... Additional restoration was undertaken by the
Criterion Collection using MTI Film's DRS and Digital Vision's
Phoenix.”
The old New Yorker DVD wasn't bad, but
this high-def transfer from a restored print represents a significant
improvement. The brighter spots in the B&W film looked washed out
in the old DVD, but that's not a problem here at all. Grain structure
is subtle and pleasing, and the image quality really shines in
close-ups.
Audio:
The linear PCM mono track is clean and
efficient if not particularly dynamic. The music, a contrast of
jaunty French piano tunes and African kora music, is treated well by
this mix. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.
Extras:
Criterion has come through in a big way
with a diverse array of substantive supplemental features on this new
Blu-ray release.
“On Ousmane Sembene” (2016, 20
min.) features an interview with scholar and Sembene biographer Samba
Gadjigo. Gadjigo has written or edited multiple English-language
books on Sembene while also co-directing the documentary “Sembene!”
(2015). He brings his expertise to this concise interview which
provides historical background regarding filmmaking in Africa under
French colonial government along with more biographical background on
Sembene's journey from Casamance to global fame.
“On Black Girl” (2016, 21 min.)
features an interview with scholar Manthia Diawara, who also directed
a documentary on Sembene included on this disc (see below). Diawara
emphasizes Sembene's interest in highlighting the struggles of
African women, while also analyzing some of the film's major themes.
“Black Girl” fans will be thrilled
to catch up with lead actress M'Bissine Therese Diop in this new
interview (2016, 12 min.) She mostly repeats information she has
shared in interviews previously, including that she had little
interest in acting at the time and at she (a part-time dressmaker at
the time) designed most of her own clothing for the film. Diouana has
become such a legendary, defining character in African cinema it's
always exciting to see the woman who brought her to life.
It's not much, but the “Color
Sequence” (1 min.) finally provides an opportunity to see the scene
once believed lost – when Sembene shot in color as Diouana looks
out the windows of a car and sees France for the first time. Restored
here by the British Film Institute.
“Borrom Sarret” (1963, 20 min.) is
included as an extra, but should be considered simply as one of the
two primary films on this release. The menu option for this short
film also includes another extra, “On Borom Sarret” (2016, 12
min.) gives Manthia Diawara another opportunity to provide context
and analysis.
The heftiest extra on the disc is
“Sembene: The Making of African Cinema” (1993, 60 min.), a
documentary directed by Manthia Diawara and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. It's
fun to see directors like John Singleton show up, but no doubt the
central draw here is seeing Sembene in action at festival appearances
or holding court for young, aspiring filmmakers at his Galle Ceddo
home. Another brief highlight is Sembene discussing his fondness for
Charlie Chaplin, who he once met.
The final extras are a short 1966
interview with Sembene (2 min.) from the French TV show “JT de 20h”
in which he relates how he found out he won the Prix Jean Vigo, and a
Theatrical Trailer (1 min.) for “Black Girl.”
The slim fold-out insert booklet
includes an essay by critic Ashley Clark.
Film Value:
Off-hand, the only other African films
I can think of in the Criterion Collection are Djibril Diob Mambety's
“Touki Bouki”and Ahmed al Maanouni's “Traces”, both part of
the “Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project” box set. “Borom
Sarret” and “Black Girl” have both been restored by World
Cinema as well. Here's hoping there are many more African films to
come. As for this Criterion release, it does justice to Ousmane
Sembene, one of world cinema's greats.