Black Girl (La Noire de...). 1966. Directed by Ousmane Sembene.

(12/31/00)

Diouana seems like a rebellious teenager in a dysfunctional family. She is hired in Dakar to care for the children of a white family. They take her back to the Riviera with them and expect her to just cook and clean. She feels she wasn't hired to cook. The wife yells at her more and more and she refuses to carry out her duties and eventually cuts her throat.

According to the program notes this symbolizes the lack of communication between the black and white cultures. It is obvious that the husband and wife are having relationship problems and the wife--possibly also the husband but primarily the wife--is taking it out on Diouana. Diouana makes no attempt at all to communicate her unhappiness except through her rebelliousness. It seems pretty stupid to me that she would cut her throat without at least making an attempt to talk it out.

We hear Diouana's thoughts through an interior monologue similar to the one in Borom Sarret. We hear how unhappy and disappointed and isolated she is. She had hopes of seeing the Riviera and having nice clothes. The reality turns out to be quite different. She says that her whole life is spent between the kitchen and another room.

Why doesn't Diouana have time to herself, to do with as she pleases? Her employers don't seem to be really evil. And they don't seem to understand what's with her--it totally puzzles them.

When Diouana arrives in France the husband driver her to their home. There is a section in color showing the Riviera. The rest of the film is in black and white. I think that the brief section in color is unnecessary and distracting. Most of the rest of the film (except forflashbacks) takes place in the apartment. We never seem to go outside again and there is a real claustrophobic atmosphere.

Diouana can't write. We are also told that she can't speak French. That puts her at a great disadvantage on the Riviera, but I also wonder if there was any language through which she was able to communicate with her employers. I assume they had one language in common as the wife was always giving her orders.

There is a memorable scene in which Diouana receives a letter from her mother. The husband reads it to her and then, as Diouana can't write, decides to write a reply on her behalf. This scene is memorable because Diouana has no opportunity to express herself. She certainly couldn't dictate a reply in which she told her mother how she really felt and what her circumstances were really like. Moreover, the husband decides to just write a letter on her behalf, putting words in her mouth, and this struck me as presumptuous and disrespectful. (I wonder why exactly Diana can't write if her mother could. But maybe the letter from her mother was dictated.)

When Diouana comes to her new employers she brings them an African mask as a gift. Later, when she feels betrayed she tries to take it back and there is a fight over it. After her suicide the husband takes her belongings back to her family and a little boy puts on the mask and follows him around. I am sure that there is a significance to all this that I am not aware of. At any rate, the business of the little boy following the husband around wearing the mask is moving and eerie.

The husband tries to give Diouana's mother her wages, but the mother just turns away from him. The husband, at least, wasn't a bad person. Diouana's death seems like a tragedy that was stupid and unnecessary. If only the employers could have been attentive enough to this black girl to have heeded the warning signs. They could have at least taken her back to Africa.