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Review by Sally Jane Black

Edited like a skipping stone, observing and critiquing its own genre, tearing apart the trends of others while stoically putting no words or context into what we are seeing; intentionally outside, intentionally removed.

52 project: 77/52

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EDIT: My revised take! But feel free to read this one as well, raised some points!

'A film about what?' my friends ask.
'A film about Senegal.'
'But what in Senegal?'

I am often prone to knee-jerk when it comes to ethnography like this, but it has its place as well, I guess. I was excited for this one especially, since I had heard such great things about T. Minh-ha Trinh. So my heart was wide open for it, but I think I'm with her friends on this one tbh.

From Trinh's delivery of the above quotation, I could tell that she was being critical of her friends for thinking that there isn't much going on in Senegal. She inflects…

Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★

Less a movie about Senegalese women than one about the film camera as a weapon that mediates how the development world see and process the other. What's anthroplogical cinema? A mediation on cinemas power of perhaps one a little too dry.

Review by isapaiva ★

I've never seen such a disconnect between what a filmmaker thinks they are doing and what they are actually doing. Minh-Ha says she doesn't want to speak about the people of Senegal, but "speak next to them". And then she uses voice over throughout her film, literally drowning out the voices of the women she films, never allowing us to understand what they say by foregoing subtitles, and peppering her film with several long close-ups of the women's bare breasts. Minh-Ha thinks she is such a revolutionary, but she made a film that objectifies and silences the people she is filming to an extent that a Nat Geo documentary (which this film is a critique of) could never reach. This film made me angry.

Review by Benvolio Liked

”Entering into the only reality of signs, where I myself am a sign”

Somewhere on this website is quite a scathing review I once wrote about this film! I’m sure it’s a fine take and in many ways younger me was the better writer, but I will revise my opinion on this. I think my original problem was that it didn’t engage with its subjects beyond filming them, but Trinh T. Minh-ha did not make this to discuss any of the individuals filmed herein. This is concerned with the imposition of signs, “the internal commentary that escorts images,” but also with not explaining those images. It’s about letting a gesture be and allowing ethnography to fail

Review by tisc ★★★★ Liked

"i do not intend to speak about / just speak near by."

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"There is no such thing as documentary." - Trinh T. Minh Ha

Objectivity isn't possible. Documentary can never fulfil its promise of objective truth, because truth is effusive; ineffable - impossible. That doesn't mean truth does not exist, but it's a perpetual escapee, slippery and multiplicitous - turning and running as soon as the camera rolls. The act of placing a camera, turning it on, following an object, matching it with sound, commenting upon it obliterates its capacity for objectivity and weighs it down, paints it with visible brush strokes, ruffles and scratches it with the indefatigable presence of power dynamics. Racial, colonial, gendered - keep going... Intersectionality is a listless chasm.

All film is ethnography; even autobiography. And ethnography…

Review by Avirup

Really interesting ideas at play here but you'd have to say what really is the point like even Trinh herself says that too. This is supposed to be critiquing the conventions and manipulative elements of ethnographic documentaries which is an intriguing idea but the final product here is not what she wanted it to be, not a total failure though. She does the things which she is supposed to be critiquing here which is the purpose but does take the shine and importance away from the subjects. So this is not really a film about the Senegalese women or the village — we do get to see the daily activities, some raw images and lots of close-ups of women's bare…

Review by Matiboy ☁️ ★★★★ Liked

Reassemblage From the Firelight to the Screen (1983) ~ 7.5/10

ESPAÑOL ~ SPANISH 

-“¿Qué opinas sobre la poligamia?”

-“Entiendo que el hombre tenga el derecho y nosotras no, nos hemos acostumbrado, es parte de nuestra cultura.
¿Y tú? ¿tienes un esposo para ti sola?”

Me fascinó este documental, son 40 minutos de juego constante con el sonido y la imagen, es un documental que logra entender a la perfección sobre sí misma, me refiero a que sabe siempre que tiene que a ver y en qué momento, es a medida. Me encanta como juega con los sonidos, por momentos nada, por otros momentos mucho, frases que se repiten y se repiten, pero en diferentes circunstancias. E impresionante y fascinante el…

Review by asiyah 💫 Liked

interesting to think about hearing minh-ha’s narration about ethnographic signifiers while kanopy’s captions kept repeating “percussive tribal music”

Review by matteoB ★★★★

"...the habit of imposing a meaning to every single sign”
 "...what I see is life looking at me"
 "I am looking through a circle in a circle of looks"

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Director: Let's make an ethrographic film that critically follows the lives of Senagalese women.
Audience; Is it going to be interesting?
Director: No, it's actually going to be one of the most boring films on Earth. So sorry.
Audience: Can it at least be insightful?
Director; I'll do my best to make it look insightful without actually making it insightful. That work?
Audience:
Director:
Director: I wonder why most people don't like this movie!