{"id":11915,"date":"2010-08-01T15:06:38","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T22:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11915"},"modified":"2021-01-19T18:09:29","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T01:09:29","slug":"black-girl-1966","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11915","title":{"rendered":"Black Girl\/La Noire de&#8230; (1966)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Why am I here? Am I a nursery maid or a housemaid?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster-214x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-64532\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster-214x300.png 214w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster-729x1024.png 729w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster-91x128.png 91w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster-768x1078.png 768w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster-192x270.png 192w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Black-Girl-1969-Poster.png 787w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA young Senegalese woman (Mbissine Therese Diop) suffers from debilitating depression when she&#8217;s sent to France to work as a housemaid for her heartless employers (Anne-Marie Jelinek and Robert Fontaine).\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Africa<\/li>\n<li>Downward Spiral<\/li>\n<li>French Films<\/li>\n<li>Race Relations<\/li>\n<li>Servants, Maids, and Housekeepers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nPeary argues that this &#8220;first feature of Africa&#8217;s most famous filmmaker, Ousmane Sembene&#8221; is &#8220;crudely made [and] unusually structured&#8221; but &#8220;of interest for reasons other than its landmark status in African cinema&#8221;. He points out that &#8220;no film has better conveyed the concept of &#8216;domestic slavery'&#8221; &#8212; a form of &#8220;neo-colonialism&#8221; in which &#8220;whites pay wages to blacks but treat them as if they were property&#8221;. It&#8217;s especially unfortunate, then, that this landmark film is such a chore to sit through. Despite the undeniable importance and sincerity of Sembene&#8217;s message, the acting, characterizations, and script are all so crudely executed that <em>Black Girl<\/em> comes across more like a promising student film than one that deserves any kind of worldwide acclaim. <\/p>\n<p>The majority of scenes in this hour-long film &#8212; &#8220;adapted from Sembene&#8217;s 1961 short story about a real-life tragedy&#8221; &#8212; seem scripted merely to show us how unjust Diop&#8217;s situation is, which we understand and sympathize with right away; from there, not much happens, and we&#8217;re not given nearly enough insight into the motivations or backgrounds of either Diouana (Diop) or her bigoted employers to care about them as three-dimensional characters. While we can sense and appreciate Sembene&#8217;s deeper thematic concerns &#8212; Peary notes that his &#8220;films are intended to show the problems of his people&#8230; [who] are susceptible to falling into the same trap as [Diouana]&#8221; &#8212; he fails to effectively bring them to the surface, instead relying far too heavily on Diouana&#8217;s rather repetitive voiceover. With that said, it&#8217;s fitting that this film &#8212; which is undeniably groundbreaking on several levels &#8212; won the Prix Jean Vigo, an award <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prix_Jean_Vigo\">usually given to a young director, for his or her independent spirit<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A valuable <em>cinema verite<\/em> glimpse at neo-colonialist Senegal in the 1960s<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/black-girl-still.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/black-girl-still.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11918\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nYes, simply for its historical significance as <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ousmane_Sembene\">the first feature film ever released by a sub-Saharan African director<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Categories<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Historically Relevant<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0060758\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/black-girl--borom-sarret-1969\">Roger Ebert&#8217;s Review (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slantmagazine.com\/film\/review\/black-girl\/1914\">Slant Magazine Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1969\/01\/13\/archives\/screen-2-from-senegalfeature-and-short-are-at-the-new-yorker.html\">New York Times Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Why am I here? Am I a nursery maid or a housemaid?&#8221; Synopsis: A young Senegalese woman (Mbissine Therese Diop) suffers from debilitating depression when she&#8217;s sent to France to work as a housemaid for her heartless employers (Anne-Marie Jelinek and Robert Fontaine). Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Africa Downward Spiral French Films Race Relations Servants, Maids, and Housekeepers Response to Peary&#8217;s Review: Peary argues that this &#8220;first feature of Africa&#8217;s most famous filmmaker, Ousmane Sembene&#8221; is &#8220;crudely made [and]&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=11915\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-responses-to-peary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11915"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64533,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11915\/revisions\/64533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}