Black Girl (1966 film)

Black Girl (French: La noire de...) is a 1966 French-Senegalese drama film, written and directed by Ousmane Sembène in his directorial debut.Black Girl stars Mbissine Thérèse Diop as Diouana, a young Senegalese woman who moves from Dakar, Senegal to Antibes, France to work for a French couple.As a gift, Diouana gives her employers a traditional mask that she had bought from a small boy for 50 guineas, and they display it in their home.However, in France, she does not leave the apartment and only cooks and cleans inside the house—a stark contrast to her previous life in Senegal, where she spent much time outdoors.These themes are highlighted through the recurring appearance of an African mask that Diouana gives to her employers on her first day of work at the house in Dakar.Theorists have explained that placing any human being in an inferior position in the context of discourse causes great mental strain.[5] The beginning of the film shows a large group of women who wait on the side of the street every morning in hopes they will be hired.When Diouana is hired and arrives in France, she discovers herself to be in isolation from the world around her and forced to face the issue of racism daily.Diouana dreams of going to the French shops, seeing the beautiful views, and living a luxurious lifestyle, but she lacks the resources to do so.She attempts to express some part of this dream by wearing dresses and heels while working, but Madame yells at her to take off the clothes and reminds Diouana that she is a maid and has no need for such attire.[10] A 1973 review in The Village Voice calls the film "overly didactic and melodramatic," but recognizes that it offers a valuable African perspective that resonates with audiences in former French colonies.In an article on the occasion of Black Girl's fiftieth anniversary, A. O. Scott of The New York Times describes the film as "at once powerfully of its moment and permanently contemporary," adding that "the force of Mr. Sembène's art—the sheer beauty that is the most striking feature of his early films—lies in his humanism."[13] In a 2017 essay for The Criterion Collection, Ashley Clark characterizes Black Girl as an "elegantly stark dramatization of postcolonial pain.""[14] Writing for The Guardian, Jordan Hoffman describes Black Girl as "dazzling" and "essential viewing for the well-rounded film lover.