Semben'es Film, Black Girl

Ok, I did get the opportunity to watch Sembene's film, Black Girl which was produced in 1966. This is a black and white film that tells the story of a young African girl, Diouna, from Senegal. Enthralled by the prospect of being employed by two French couple, Diouna agrees to go to France and serve as a house maid. The film further documents the misery Diouna would face in the new household she has just been hired. Cleaning, cooking and watching after the kids become part of her daily chores. To make matters worse she is verbally abused by her employers--especially the lady of the house. Poor Diouna becomes nostalgic and feels that her life was much better when she lived in Dakar and that her delusions of progress by working for a white family were all wrong. She eventually becomes depressed and decides to end her life because she is certain that she will never see Darkar again. By the way, Sembene did an excellent job in getting my attention even though 95% of the film takes place in the house she works in. Total confinement!

I found this film very interesting because in many ways it relates to the first feature film I produced in 2000 (Mogzitwa/The Nanny) http://www.filmsofafrica.com/Ethiopia/mogzitwa.htm. Although I was not aware of Sembene's film at the time, both his film, Black Girl and my film, Mogiztwa have some similarities. Like Sembene's film, Mogzitwa also documents the life of an immigrant girl who comes to America, eluded by the prospect of an improved life in a foreign country. There is the element of domestic abuse in both films. The only difference is Sembene's film deals with race relations while mine deals with domestic abuse within the same race. The main character in my film gets hired by her own relatives who only brought her from Ethiopia to meet their own interest. For very little money this new comer would babysit their child, cook for the family, and clean the house. Disconnected from her family back home and the rest of the world, the character in my film is forced to totally rely on the couples who have hired her. Her mails get censored sometimes, trashed. Her telephone conversations are secretly recorded. The lady of the house feels threatened at times because she thinks she is getting older and begins to suspect that her own husband is paying extra attention to the young and hottie nanny. The only way to get rid of this impending problem is to return the girl back to her homeland, to which the nanny refuses. There is a reason I decided to make my character choose this rout. One reason is because unlike Sembene's film, I felt it would be important to emphasize on the notion of immigration. Yes, both Sembene's chacater (Dinou) and mine (Mimi) have at one point felt that they were not happy with their lives back home. They have wished and vowed to change that. However difficult it may be, killing oneself would not improve the situation. Yes, these two characters are constantly pressured, physically abused and thus psychologically affected. They are both humans and they would think of all possibilities to exit from the situation. True enough in one scene even the character in my film, Mimi is seen as she attempts suicide like Dinou in Sembene's film. I wish Dinou hadn't done that. I wish that she tried various ways to escape the situation and that thre were more dramatic moments in the film that would paint her as a strong character. To me, Dinou was meek and she dies that way. Yes, I felt sad by the decision she ultimately made, but I wanted to see more.