Foe's Enigma

Ever heard of a little book called Robinson Crusoe? Well actually not so little at all, it's a bit of a whopper. A long and boring whopper at that. I know I read it once upon a time, but of course now that it's actually important I can't remember a thing. All I remember is thinking that the movie must be more interesting than the tedious pages I was slowly moving through.

Thankfully, I am evidently not the only one who thought so. Yesterday afternoon I picked up J.M. Coetzee's book Foe, and by last night I had read every page. The novel is something like a parallel of Robinson Crusoe except that it is actually interesting.

In very simple terms, the novel follows a woman as she is castaway, meets the character Cruso and his man Friday on an island, then is rescued and attempts to write a book about her experiences. Embedded in there is some cool stuff about postmodernism and even some absurdist and linguistic bits thrown in for good measure. The first 152 pages of the novel are quite an interesting read in and of themselves.

Then there is the last chapter.

Chapter IV is an enigma, for lack of better description. At first glance it has little to do with the novel and is clearly written in an entirely different vein. However, with some deeper thought, this chapter is the most important of the entire novel. I will attempt my analysis this chapter assuming that my blog reader has also read Foe. This will discuss the last four pages of the novel, p. 153-157.

The chapter seems to take place sometime in the future. The route up to the room our protagonist was last in is described as "dark and mean," which is our first indication of something ominous. The person ascending comes across a woman, and although it is not specified it is immediately clear to the reader that the woman is dead. She is wrapped as a mummy would be in an endless scarf, and she is describes as, "weigh[ing] no more than a sack of straw." Previously in the novel, the main character Susan is concerned about the reality of a girl claiming to be her long lost daughter. Just the page before, Susan and her writer Foe are involved in a conversation as to whether or not the girl is "substantial." This comparison of the girl to a "sack of straw" would seem to indicate that Susan was correct. The girl was not a complete person, made up of straw like a scarecrow.

Next the narrator sees two people in bed. Their skin is taught and "their lips have receded, uncovering their teeth." They too are obviously dead, again seemingly mummified. The reader can easily infer that these two are Susan and Foe. As "their eyes are closed" it would seem that they died at peace in their sleep. They are described as smelling of lilac, which symbolizes both love and innocence. This is interesting because Susan and Foe were not in love, nor was either of them innocent. Quite to the contrary actually. The smell is indicative of the contraditions that Susan and Foe embody.

Friday, still in his alcove, is still alive. This sets of the magical feel of this chapter. Obviously, if Susan and Foe are mummified, a very long time has passed. And yet Friday's "skin is warm." This is our first indication that Friday is eternal, so clearly he symbolizes something. Later the narrator diescovers, "a scar like a necklace, left by a rope or chain." Remember that earlier Susan had put a necklace on Friday containing his freedom papers. The reader can recognize now how Friday has been permanently scarred, both figuratively and literally, by Susan. Friday is a black African slave and Susan effectively his master. Clearly it is the enslavement by the white people that has cause the black man's scarring. However, Friday is still alive. Neither the enslavement nor the enslavers have killed the spirit of Friday. He will in fact live long past them, always bearing the scars they gave him.

Still, Friday will not speak. He will not even open his mouth when pressed to do so. Only of his own accord does his mouth open, and then the sounds of the island come out. The island for both Cruso and Friday symbolized a kind of freedom. Friday thus speaks only of what has made him free.

There is a plaque on the wall with the name Daniel DeFoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. Interestingly, the words below are too small to read. This lets the reader of Foe make his own epitaph for Daniel DeFoe.

The narrator reads a page on the table containing the words, "Dear Mr. Foe, At last I could row no further." These are the words from the opening of the novel itself. So the reader can infer that it is actually we who have stepped into this room. We are seeing the novel we are currently reading sitting on a table. Again, there is an air of unreality. Or perhaps true reality, as we are invited to make our own interpretations rather than relying on the interpretations of Susan or Coetzee as they write their books.

However, the words go on to become not the words we had read in the opening of the novel. Instead the narrative describes the person sinking into the water off the island where Friday laid out his petals. The "gay little fish" are now gone. These fish were a sign of life and hope, but they are now gone. The writer attempts to hold a candle up, but it gives off no light, no understanding. Something obstructs the unknown writer, and they describe the water as "dirty." Something terrible has happened in this water.

The writer discovers Susan and the captain of her original ship dead and floating in the water. They are described as "fat as pigs." Friday is there as well. The writer "finger[s] the chain about his throat." So, the underwater Friday is still in captivity. But the words the writer speaks become "filled with water" and don't come out... instead the "bodies are their own signs." This is reminiscent of Saussure's signifier and signified. For Friday, who cannot speak, the bodies are the outward signs of ideas. Susan and her captain are "fat" because they have gained so much off the misfortune of the slaves.

Again the writer tries to open Friday's mouth. This time, however, when his mouth opens the reader encounters a "slow stream" that "washes... the island" and "beats... against the skin of my face." This is Friday's world. Without words, he is now washing clean the experiences throughout the book and also the reader.

Overall, this is Friday's chapter. Coetzee chose to give him no voice through the novel because he, Coetzee, did not have the experience with which to voice him correctly. But this chapter is for him. Friday is eternal. He will not die, as Susan does. Susan embodies the white colonialists and slave drivers who will eventually lose their lives. Friday, the spirit of Africa, lives on. Although he is scarred by the efforts of the colonialists he will break free of their chains and continue to live. Eventually those who come after will be able to see, as if they are reading in a book, what really happened to those like Friday. Perhaps this chapter does not take place at a future point in the novel, but rather in the real time of the reader. Perhaps in reality Susan died in the mutiny. In an abstract way, her entire story was then her concoction of reality. The whole novel then, up until the last chapter, was the colonialist viewpoint of the island and the escape. Only now, when the colonialists have passed, can the real story be understood. And in the end, this reality will be inescapable. The reader, symbolic of the people of the world, will finally know Friday's story. It will beat against our faces and softly force us to understand it.

God's Bits of Wood

I've just finished a brilliant book called God's Bits of Wood by my favorite African artist, Ousmane Sembene (at that time, Sembene Ousmane).

Sembene wrote this book after his own personal experiences with a 1940s strike on the Dakar-Niger railroad in Senegal. The book takes place in a few cities (notably Thies and Dakar) and tells the story of the strike through the individual experiences of a dozen or so highlighted people.

One paragraph in particular stood out to me. The opening paragraph of the chapter entitled Thies; Doudou (p. 143) is important simply because of the literary adeptness with which it was written. It is not a place of a particular plot turn within the book. No action is described in the paragraph, and no major understandings are reached. But somehow this paragraph is able to convey much more than the simple words it is made up of.

What I appreciate most in this paragraph is everything it relates that is not specifically stated.

Firstly, this paragraph provides a timeline. Sembene says, "In the six weeks that had passed since the battle with the troops on the first day..." There has been little difinitive timing up until this point. This emphasis on time marks an interesting point in the story. As we have seen from other African novels (most notably No Sweetness Here by Ama Ata Aidoo) the importance of time is a Western notion. It is interesting that Sembene chooses to place time in this part of the novel. It does help we Western readers to understand the scope of the strike. But, more importantly, it emphasizes how the character Doudou is struggling with the railroad itself, a distinctly Western invention. On the one hand he is attempting to support his own culture by participating in the strike. On the other, he is the "secretary-general of the union." The very title "secretary-general" invokes a Western concept. By inserting the idea of time, Sembene has subtly shown the coming together of these two cultures.

By the same token, Sembene is sure to remind us that these people are still African. To do this he inserts a single line, "when he walked his head drooped toward the ground, like a fruit too heavy for its branch." Over and over again in African literature we see comparisions to nature, such as the python in Sia representing old, repressive customs and the locusts in Things Fall Apart as the settling of the white men. Here, Doudou's form is being compared to a fruit. This is particularly poignant because there is no fruit, indeed nothing to eat at all, in the village. The fact that Doudou is represented as the fruit signifies the fact that it is actually the people themselves who are being eaten (alive) by this experience.

Another point that stands out in this paragraph is the use of repetition. Since the inception of the strike, each character in the novel has continually pointed out the devastating monotony of their situation. The men gather in front of their old workplace but do nothing. The young boys pretend day after day to be soldiers but have grown tired even of their play. The women search for food and water. The same thing, day after day. And in this paragraph we see rhetorical examples of this endless repetition. Doudou is "more and more" aware of his responsibility. The people have, "no food, no money, and no credit." Each day for the strikers is a redundant rehearsal of the last, a point which Sembene is making clear even in his very language.

Finally, the structure of the paragraph itself seems to embody the very struggle Doudou is faced with. The beginning of the paragraph is very straightforward. It established Doudou's place in the strike, his title, and exactly what his problem at present is, namely that, "the difficulties had been even greater than he feared." Each of these is stated as an unwavering fact. Yet as the paragraph continues, this surity falls apart. By the end, Doudou can, "only see the hunger etched around the rim of the children's eyes." He no longer has hold of the simple facts. He can only concentrate on the harm caused to those around him. He, "asked himself constantly if he was in the right" showing that he is no longer holding firm to his beliefs. Rather, he now goes back and forth about his decision. This unraveling into confusion holds true for all the people participating in the strike. They no longer are sure it was the correct decision. They have lost food and water and loved ones. Yet, like Doudou, they perservere. Thankfully, at the conclusion of the strike, they are rewarded with a happy ending.

100 Days

100 days is a sad, sad movie about the Rwandan Genocide.  My favorite thing about this movie though is the way it deals with the genocide so subtly.  Easily, 100 days could be a simple cry.  Like paint by numbers, this could be one of those movies where the director shows his audience exactly where he wants them to feel the emotional pull.  But not this movie.  Nick Hughes (the director) instead chose to focus on specific character development.   In fact, the overall toll of the genocide is never specifically mentioned.  Still, the audience is bawling by the end.

The emotional pull of 100 days is entirely due to a cleverly crafted character/audience relationship.  The two main characters, Baptiste (Eric Bridges Twahirwa)  and Josette (Cleophas Kabisita), are young lovers intending to be married.  From the beginning, the scenes with just these two are vibrant and happy.  The first time we see them together they are playing in trees.  The colors on the screen are bright and the camera picks up various shafts of light coming through the trees.  The dialogue is simple but conveys a youthful sense of hope.  Even Josette's dress, which she proudly proclaims is from, "Paris!" is colorful and full of life, just like the young people themselves.  From this scene the audience has a sense of progression, that these two want life to be better for themselves and future generations.  Josette refuses to sleep with Baptiste because she doesn't want to be pregnant and unhappily married, as she says, "like my other friends."  They want to have children when they choose and wear clothing from far away.  These dreams and others like them are so similar to this American audience that we can't help but be swept away with Josette and Baptiste. 

 

There is one beautiful shot in this sequence that deserves special remark.  When they are discussing their future, Josette and Baptiste are sitting on the forest floor on a small hill.  The camera looks up at them, Josette in the foreground on the right and Baptiste far in the background on the top left.  At this point this shot is jarring because it places the lovers physically distant from each other.  Unfortunately this is a camera's way of foreshadowing their future.  

At the end of the movie we see an almost identical shot.  Josette is sitting on the right in the foreground, and Baptiste on the top left corner in the background.  However, Josette's beautiful dress is now discolored, torn and dull.  Baptiste too has dirt and blood on him, and looks to have aged ten years in those short 100 days.  Even without viewing the movie, these two production stills get the point across vividly.

A movie about genocide could easily go overboard on the violence.  Although it is important to recognize that horrific things did happen, the danger is that, somehow, showing too much of this in a film is more likely to desensitize the audience than make the needed point.  This is much like Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, which endeavors to make a religious/humanistic point but is overwhelmingly remembered for its excessive violence. A movie about genocide could end up similarly.  Instead, there are relatively few direct discussions of the genocide happening around the characters.  One such scene is a simple yet horrific shot of body after body after body being dumped into a pit.  Some of the bodies aren't even fully in the pit.  The visual trick of seeing a dead body hanging only half over a ledge and some villain walking over the former person with no sense of decorum shows the genius of Hughes.  Without use of dialogue he has effectively captured the evil of the genocide.  

Another scene with very little dialogue but huge portent comes almost exactly in the middle of the film.  Interestingly, the larger part of the violence only takes place in the second half of the movie.  However, the inhumanity can be summed up in a single scene.  The scene begins with three groups of men coming to a crossroads (how symbolic) with a gas station in the middle.  The Tutsi children from the local boys school are called forth by name and put in the gas station.  The gas station is filled with kerosene, but even after the order is given to burn it no one will carry the torch.  Finally a single man takes charge of the fire, and only after this do the others join in.  This scene seems to me significant for two reasons: 1) No one wanted to lead the violence, only follow it.  They have no real reason to cause the disturbance, but follow almost gleefully when another leads.  2) The schoolchildren don't scream.  Even when the kerosene seeps into their single-room prison, these 10 year old men don't scream.  Instead, there is a beautiful pan shot of the boys protecting each other.  How powerful.

Lastly and perhaps most poignant is a dreadful scene at the end of the film.  At first the Tutsis were captive in a church, at which point they were abandoned by the UN and effectively left to their deaths.  At this point however it is the Hutus who have taken refuge in the church and are now trapped.  A small child asks why the Tutsis are different.  A woman answers her that Tutsis have long fingers and lighter skin, all the while stroking the child's fingers and face. The visual effect is creepy, but the dialogue here is all important.  In a single question and answer these two have summed up the problem.  The child cannot understand how the oppressed are any different from she, and the only answer the "knowledgeable" adult has is that they are physically different, and not even remarkably so.

How indescribably awful that a million people were killed for having slightly longer fingers.

Overall, the most remarkable part of 100 Days is that it conveys the deep sense of horror without specifically dwelling on the genocide.  This is the genius of the film.  The audience walks away with a deeply ingrained sense of frustration, indignation, disgust and an incredible sadness without even seeing the full effect of the genocide on the Rwandan people.  A remarkable film.

Some Fun

A witty, silly, and somehow pretty accurate trailer for Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

ZOOOOOOM!

Faat Kine, at first glance, is a happy little movie about a single mother living her life. However, with only the slightest effort, the deeper aspects of the movie unfold to deliver a stunning piece of work concerning a plethora of themes. Just some of these are; gender relations, problems with tradition, friendship, charity, feminism and even love. With the cunning combination of wit, humor and just a little bite thrown into the mix, Ousmane Sembene created a powerful movie with far reaching social implications.

I have to admit, the very first technical aspect I noticed about Faat Kine was the focus-pull shot that opens the movie. Unfortunately, due to its rarity, I was unable to see the movie before the appointed time, and we discussed this aspect in class before I was able to write about it! I will take this as a vote of confidence in my own viewing, and go forth with another noticable trait.

One distinct technical aspect was the use of zoom on Kine's face. This is particularly interesting because there was no use of zoom in Sia, the first African movie our class viewed. I think for this reason I noticed the use of a zoom in Faat Kine.

The first time the zoom is used is when we the audience first meet Kine. She has worked her way up to managing a gas station, and is sitting comfortably in her white doctor-ish coat. Several people come in to her office, and each time the zoom is only on Kine's face.

One person who comes to visit is a woman selling flowers. By zooming in on Kine's face we can see her caring nature. It is almost as if Sembene is inviting us to be closer to her ourselves. The audience recognizes immediately the sweetness and charity embodied in Kine. We feel as if we would like to be closer to a woman like her. This feeling is undoubtedly increased by the visual aspect of moving closer to her.

However, these charming feelings are quickly tempered in comparison with another visitor, the man who left her pregnant and uneducated. This time, the zoom allows the audience to focus on her harder nature. She becomes almost masculine in her motions, and the slight pull towards the focal point of her face allows the audience to recognize her harsher character traits. Indeed, it is at this point that we can see some flaws in her skin. This was probably unintentional. Even still, it is almost as if the camera itself is recognizing all the character traits of Kine.

Through the use of zoom, we are able to see Kine at her most personal. This means the audience is privy to both her personable and giving nature as well as her harder, masculine traits. Although unconscious, the zoom allows these recognitions to take place. It takes a true genius to implement these smallest of details in such an effective manner.

Ousmane Sembene

Interesting and Award winning video of Ousmane Sembene

Experiment with Blog Sounds

Gabcast! My Blog Sounds Like.... #1

Ousmane Sembene

We've created a website for our African Film and Literature class about Ousmane Sembene, the Father of African Cinema. Please feel free to visit and comment!!

Also we have a very simple website for his movie Faat Kine. Please visit that as well!

In the Cutting of a Drink

My nephew was gone a long time.

He was gone from the last of Lent to Christmas. Too long for a son who will come back. But he did come back. He came home again in time for the celebration of Christmas, but he did not bring Mansa.

My nephew went to Accra to a place called Mamprobi to find his sister. He tells us he stayed in the house of his friend Duaywaw. He took a long time to tell us this story. My brothers and my sisters and my littlest neice, we waited for him to bring her back and then we waited to hear the reason she was not there.

He told us of the dizzying cars in Accra. I do not understand these cars. Where in our country are there so many people with the money to buy cars? Our money goes to our children, to the growing of yams. But these people, they have cars to drive them to their farms. Perhaps they have no farms. I do not know. I do not know of these people.

My nephew was patient in his telling. Our family had many questions and gave him constant interruption. He allowed our questions but answered only a few. He requested a drink from me to clear his throat. It was then that I knew he was telling a sad story. Only the sad stories are difficult to tell.

My nephew found a bus to take him to Mamprobi. I worried that the driver would decieve a confused young man, but my nephew assured me he met Duayaw safely. Duayaw was asleep, in the afternoon on a Saturday. My nephew says Duayaw has gained much wealth. The Lord has blessed his family.

Duayaw in his youth went to school with Mansa. Duayaw became wealthy. My neice, she refused school after Klase Tri. She caused trouble for her mother until I found her a teacher who would educate Mansa in the ways of a woman. She came back for Christmas and showed us her skill in sewing and keeping the house. But the next Christmas she did not return. For twelve years she has not come back to her home. That is why my nephew went to find her.

Duayaw made my nephew believe Mansa has found a big man. As my nephew told the story, I believed too that perhaps she had found a big man in the city. Ei! That would be well for her. But Mansa was a good girl in her youth. If she had found fortune she would have come to her family to bring them wealth. But she has not. Because of this, even though I hoped, I knew in my heart she had not married a big man.

Duayaw knew much about Mamprobi. He knew that it was too big a city to find a young girl. But Mansa was only young when she left. She was ten when I last saw her. She would be a woman now. Duayaw discouraged my nephew. But all the same he would help.

My nephew told us that Duayaw has a woman. She is not of his tribe. They should not marry. A man should respect his tribe. Duayaw has been blessed by the Lord, but will be out of favor if he continues with this woman. She even eats with the men! I did not believe when my nephew told me this. I shouted, "Ei!" but my nephew says it is true.

It was just before my nephew told us of his night out in Mamprobi that he asked for a drink. This began the sad part of the telling. I knew it was sad because he asked for a drink.

I did not believe him when he said he went to dance in the big city. People in the city do not dance. They do not have the schooling of their elders to teach them. They do not have the cloths to dance in. Ei! But they dance all the same. My nephew tells me, so it is true.

I did not believe either that Duayaw's woman would drink beer. But my nephew says she did drink, and sitting with the men. He says there were many women in the place. The women of the city drink beer. They drink beer even with men who are not their husbands. This city is not blessed by the Lord.

My nephew danced. I am proud that he danced in the ways of his people. He even began to dance with the women there. These women, they are not married and yet they drink beer and go together to a dance with no men. They dance with any man they choose and paint their lips to look the same as their blood. My nephew tells me this is true.

He danced with one of the women. She laughed when he spoke Fante. Then he danced with another woman. She took him to a place with bright light. It was there that she screamed at him. "Any kind of work is work! You villager, you villager, who are you!" he tells us she said. This girl, she had painted her face too. But in the bright light my nephew knew her. He put his hands on her shoulders to calm her but she threw them away. A sister treating her brother so! But she did not know him. When she did recognize him, she only laughed. And she did not come home with him She is a bad woman, a woman who will take a man to a corner of a dance in the city. But it was Mansa. And she is coming home at Christmas.

My nephew asked someone to cut another drink. I asked for one too.

*This story is a retelling of In the Cutting of a Drink, the short story by Ama Ata Aidoo

Pan African Film Festival

The Pan African Film Festival seems a little known wonder, a moment of geni

us snuck away an unexpected spot in Los Angeles.  The festival takes place in the Magic Johnson theatres in Crenshaw and the attached mall.  Not only is there an incredible film festival featuring literally hundreds of shorts and feature films, but in the mall is a splendid array of African art.  From the moment you walk into the festival, it becomes clear this is no Hollywood affair.  Although the names of stars like Danny Glover and Forest Whitaker abound, the atmosphere is pleasant even to the lowly student walking in.  Instead of red carpet there are friendly people at the ticket counters and lots and lots of volunteers helping with a project they genuinely believe in.  

The first program I went to was a series of short films.   The first was an accident (the wrong film in the wrong projector) but worthy of mention just the same.  It was an exceptionally well put together documentary of  the evolution of hip hop by ex-football star Byron Hurt.  Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes is remarkable and although we were cut off from full viewing when the mistake was realized I would still highly recommend the film.

The two intended films of the program were Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl and Victims of Our Riches.  The first is a period piece, a drama set in the midst of slavery.  The plot mainly concerns a young woman, who questions the irony of being "inherited" by a five year old girl.  The young actress plays a convincing part, although the dialogue and direction don't give her any help along the way.  The director seemed more involved in the visual aspects of the film, i.e. the constant use of water and bright colors to signify the spirit of the young girl, than in directing the actors.   However, the title card in the beginning of the short tells the audience that the film is "based on a true story" (actually an adaption of Harriet Tubman's

 autobiography), which makes the delivery of the lines less important than the story line.  In reality, the story line is where this film exceeds expectations.  Without giving away the drama of the film, the young girl becomes pregnant and must make a choice concerning the evil caretaker of her "owner."  Eventually it even takes on a feminist vibe, with the other woman slave protecting the protagonist.  In the end our hero chooses her form of freedom and finds happiness.  The film is uplifting even amidst the dark theme and awful script.  I'd give it three stars.

The second film, Victims of Our Riches, is a sad, sad, sad documentary.  It covers m

any aspects of African life like agriculture and economic worries while pointedly (and subtly) remarking that Africa is richer than any country her inhabitants might be working for.  Warning: this film will make you cry.  It opens with footage from the World Social Forum in 2006, where a man addressing a large crowd affirms, "Historical Truth is the Key to Freedom."  The director (Kai Toure) creatively intersperses these quotes at key points in the film.  He uses reoccurring security images of illegal immigrants trying to cross into Morocco, followed by their subsequent beating, to segue into black and white interviews with those who have crossed the border and been sent back.  There are six of these heart-wrenching interviews, ending with a young woman culminating her interview by saying she has learned to say, "No,

 that's not right."  The film brings to light little known facts about the African economy, like that the countries together owed the World Bank a debt of $545 billion, for which, with interest, they have paid $3485 billion.  "No, that's not right" is an apt description.  But the film also addresses the frustration of these people.  Another interviewee says, "We have only eyes for the north" and so although his country of Mali produces enough cotton to clothe all it

s people they continue to buy clothes from, "the north."  Indeed, it is noticably odd that in the moments where the camera sweeps a vast landscape and comes to rest on a person, that poor impoverished farmer is wearing a shirt proclaiming, "Reebok."  The constant movement of the handheld camera echoes the stories of these immigrants, who explain their journey from Mali to Niger to Algeria to Morocco, or something of the like.  The film then details the life these people are subjected to once they come under European law, if indeed they make it at all.  The hour long film comes to an end with the reading of a poem that was begun towards the start of the short.  With the poem as a voice-over, bright images of women and children playing and learning in cluttered streets slowly gives way to a night-vision sequence with a camera man following a band of illegal immigrants as they try to cross the border.  The ensuing violence, together with the calm man's voice speaking a poem of peace, makes the end of the film a tear jerker and a half.   Five stars. 

The second program I visited consisted of a single feature film simply titled Drum.  This film is anything but simple.  It details the little known story of Henry Nxumalo (played by Taye Diggs), a South African journalist who becomes instrumental in the downfall of apartheid.

This drama is especially poignant because it is based on a true story.  The film opens in Sophiatown (pronounced Sof-eye-a-town in Digg's wonderful adopted accent) and is

 immediately recognizable for it's rich costuming and smokey lens shots.  The first scene is Henry and his other friends from Drum, the Sophiatown newspaper, sitting in a dingy bar getting drunk.  One of Henry's friends, a forward thinker who will later be violently reprimanded for his heartfelt and devastatingly illegal love affair with a white woman, speaks the first lines, "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse."  The script (by screenwriter Jason Filardi) is full of little pieces of gold like that line that both speak to the mood of the time and foreshadow the movie itself.  Later in the movie come another gold piece, when Henry says of the violence in the streets, "I don't see anything heroic about young black men killing each other... almost like they were fighting to be someone."  

The nuts and bolts of the movie are perfectly put together.  The casting is superb. Henry's wife, Florence, is a strong female role, a difficult part played brilliantly by 

a young woman who's name is unfortunately not part of the program.  There is noticably little makeup on the women, making them more natural and simultaneously stronger (somehow less feminine).   The soundtrack, driven by hypnotic drum beats, is as essential to the movie as the dialogue.  The use of a "dirty lens," film speak for a fragment of something in the close foreground blocking a part of the intended focus, together with the dramatic use of smoke, visually shows the confusion of the time.  The only problem with this movie is the consistent use of modern phrases like, "kicked my ass" which would not have been prevalent in the 1950s.  Other than that, this film documents a sadly unknown story in an entertaining  and moving way.  Also a tear jerker at the end.  5 stars for this film as well.

Things Fall Apart

Currently I am reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. To be perfectly honest, a part of me expected it to be boring. I mean, how interesting can an assigned book be, right?

Wrong!

Turns out I love the book. And I'm not just saying that because I know my professor will read this blog. The writing style is engaging and the characters draw you in. I love it and very much recommend it.

In particular, I am drawn to a character named Chielo. Chielo is the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and Caves. In Umuofia (her village, or rather group of villages) the priestess lives a double life. Although at times she is the priestess, Achebe says, "In ordinary life Chielo was a widow with two children" (this is on p. 49 for anyone reading the book) . In my stereotyped misunderstanding I had believed that a woman in pre-colonial African culture could never be of much importance to the community. Yikes, that makes me sound like an awful person. What I mean is, I believed the women did incredible work but were not outwardly acclaimed for it. Surprisingly, the priestess is described as fearful and, more importantly, powerful (17). This is actually the second time power is attributed to a woman in Things Fall Apart. The first time is in reference to the old woman of their oral tradition who created the "medicine" to which Umuofia attributes its' good fortune. I love that the person highest to the god is a woman.

(African Priestess)

I also appreciate Chielo's softer side. She is described as quite friendly in ordinary life, completely unrecognizable as the priestess of Agbala (49). She has a special connection to Ezinma, the spunky daughter of the book's protagonist Okonkwo. She calls Ezinma, "my daughter" which to me reinforces her image as a motherly kind of woman within the village.

Interestingly, these two lives seem to come together at times. Towards the end of the first part of the book, Chielo comes to Okonkwo's home as the priestess of Agbala and demands to see Ezinma. Surprisingly, she refers to Ezinma here again as, "my daughter" (101). Does this mean that Ezinma is affectionately called the daughter of the village widow or of the god itself? Looks to me like she is both. Chielo has the capability both as a woman and as a priestess to recognize the power in Ezinma. I love that the women who show bold traits are given the highest honors in the village.

Here is the genius himself, Chinua Achebe

A little about me...

Hello world! I am a senior at California State University, Northridge, where I study English Literature. This is my last semester! I have a fantastic class on African Film and Literature which requires a blog, so I will post here all my reminiscences. Enjoy!