The underrated African movie Jim Jarmusch called “one of the greatest”
What defines a truly great movie? Above everything, a masterful piece of filmmaking tends to reveal a profound truth about life, even if the film utilises fantasy or science fiction to get there. This is something Jim Jarmusch knows well, his movies repeatedly coming back to the question of what it is that makes us human – even when vampires and zombies are involved.
He started his career with some rather low-budget films, like Stranger Than Paradise, a largely plotless study of its central characters, allowing absurdism and subtle humour to flow through each interaction while simultaneously capturing something quietly profound. The movie changed American indie filmmaking, bringing accessibility to the medium yet refusing to conform to Hollywood conventions.
In doing so, Jarmusch asserted himself as a vital voice in America, but he has never given in to the industry as he’s gotten more acclaim, long championing the merits of indie cinema. In fact, out of every well-known American filmmaker, he’s arguably the one who has been most steadfast in his dedication to independent filmmaking, following in the footsteps of filmmakers like John Cassavetes.
Jarmusch once told IndieWire, “I always found more interesting things outside of the mainstream. The things in the margins are more moving to me. Throughout history, there has always been a mainstream culture and a marginal culture, and the most innovative things are in the margins. Not always, but most often.”
It’s independently-made films that tend to be the most authentic, so it’s no surprise that when Jarmusch visited the Criterion Closet, he picked out a classic French independent film and called it one of the greatest movies ever made – his choice was Black Girl by Ousmane Sembène, a heartbreaking drama about a Senegalese woman sent to work as a servant for a wealthy couple in France.
She is misled into believing that she’d be working as a nanny, and instead, she becomes a domestic servant with no freedom and no autonomy, her own culture fetishised in front of her very eyes – Diouana experiences racism and even gets sexually harassed by a male dinner guest, yet the couple have an African mask on their wall, seeing it as a symbol of their open-mindedness and being oh-so-cultured.
The film is so tragic, yet so vital in its depiction of colonialism and its effects, with Diouana falling into a severe depression as her identity is eroded and her humanity is stripped away. Discussing the film, which clocks in at a short 65 minutes (so there’s really no excuse not to watch it), Jarmusch called it “a film I love very much,” adding, “It’s not exactly feel-good movie of the year.”
Describing it as a “beautifully-made film,” he declared it “one of the greatest,” and you can hardly argue with that if you’ve seen it. Black Girl is not an easy watch, and I’m sure that many viewers of the time found it uncomfortable to see something so painfully relevant, something so exposing. But that’s why movies like Black Girl are so important.
You can’t avoid the pain of Diouana’s situation, which is reflective of the experience of many women who hoped for a better life back then; the shadow of colonialism ultimately became inescapable.
