Ousmane Sembène's 1966 Black Girl (La noire de…) A Commentary on the Film

The opening shot of the movie centers on a large commercial vessel that’s docking into a harbor. The color of the ship, its whiteness that is, stands out in the backdrop of the film’s black and white color palette. The ship, the harbour, and the open seas are recurring images in Senegalese cinema. The port of Dakar makes frequent appearances in film’s such as Mati Diop’s The Atlantics, including Mambéty’s Touki Bouki, a film I’ve reviewed on the channel already. So here we see the same image being used by Sembène. In this shot alone, Sembène sets up one of his central themes, which is that of travel, over the seas particularly, in hopes that something better might lie on the other side. 

The scene goes on to show sailors and workmen drawing the ship’s large ropes to be anchored. We then cut to another view of the ship, and the name Ancerville is printed in capital letters, denoting the cruise’s name. Aboard the ship, waiting on the top deck, are the passengers who are ready to disembark. The very next shot cuts to our lead, a black lady by the name of Diouana (performed here by Mbissine Thérèse Diop). Diouana walks off the ship with the rest of the passengers and reaches the other side where bags and suitcases are being collected. She wonders if someone will be there to receive her. She walks on and picks out her bag amongst the pile. She gets past customs and heads out to meet a man, a white French man, who helps carry her bags into his car.

He drives off with her. She’s seated next to him in the passenger seat. Her comfortable attitude draws some questions. Could this be her husband, her partner, or lover? The driver takes the scenic route, passing through the stunning seafront properties of the city of Antibes. He asks her if she had a nice crossing. There’s no answer coming from Diouana. The drive goes on for a few more moments. We are shown a mountain range with more lavish properties, the richness of this country speaks for itself, so the view seems to say. And the words do come out of the man’s mouth, ‘Lovely country, France!’ Diouana responds, almost subtly as if holding back her words, ‘Yes, sir.’ The silence continues. The drive goes on. But the remark of her two words – the ‘Yes, sir’ – gives us enough information about the relational dynamics of these two individuals. This man that drives her is not her husband or lover, he is actually her boss. He drives downtown to a suburban neighbourhood. And as gentlemanly as he is supposed to be, he opens her door and gets her belongings out for her. ‘Here we are at last,’ he tells her. She looks up at the apartments, as if receiving her promise from heaven, with a soft smile developing on the corner of her face, beautifully adorned with features that elevate her exquisite femininity. Her head cover, her beaded necklace and her sunflower earrings, and the spotted dress she wears that elevates her towards a world she has been anticipating, patiently dreaming about and praying for. What might this heaven be, this thing that rises into the sky catching her complete admiration? We are shown what she is looking at.

The shot cuts to a high-rise apartment building, the place that is to be her new abode. The gentleman leads her into the house. She enters and is immediately greeted by the man’s wife. The woman says to her, ‘I’ll show you your room while we wait for the children.’ And behind them hanging over the white wall is the face of a Senegalese traditional mask.

[See full video essay on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx-xs1zk0HI&t=7s]

[See full video essay on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx-xs1zk0HI&t=7s]

Diouana is taken to her room by the lady of the house. Its spacious and probably better than anything she might have had back in Dakar. She is shown the view of the town through the window that is in her room. A spectacular sight that encapsulates the best views the French Riviera could offer. A smile sparkles on her face. She is finally in France, not just France, but the bourgeois part of it. This view of paradise is quickly shifted when the lady of the house tells Diouana that she will now show her the kitchen. Work for Diouana immediately begins. She scrubs the bath, washes the dishes, and mops the floors. Life for her quickly boxes itself in and limits her European experience to the white walls of this apartment. As she labours she thinks to herself, ‘The kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, the living room. That’s all I do…’ She goes on to say, ‘That’s not what I came to France for!’ The monotonous nature of her work and the solitude she experiences forces her to ask such questions as ‘What are the people here like?’ She notices that ‘the doors are all shut, day and night, night and day.’ She then reveals the reason why she came to Antibes in the first place, which was for her to be an au pair, to be the nanny of the children that belong to this white couple. And she asks herself in a fit of frustration, ‘Where are they? I’m no cook,’ she says, ‘I’m no cleaning woman!’ The shot cuts to her mopping the floor. She does these domestic chores in heels, wearing her fashionable dress, and in makeup. The intention here clearly juxtaposes the issue that Diouana is facing. She had come to France to perform a certain task, which was to be an au pair to the children of the household. And her dressing in her best and most presentable cloths is a protest against the work she is being forced into doing. But soon enough the tension between her and her mistress begin to rise.

The lady of the house says, ‘You are not going to a party. You’ve been dressed like that for three weeks!’ she angrily walks off and gets an apron for Diouana. She ties the apron around her waist and informs Diouana that they will be receiving guests soon. Diouana is told to prepare rice. And just like that her attire that holds so much beauty has been tempered with. The alterations, both figurately and literal, have begun taking place in her life. Diouana completes her mopping with the apron on and walks off. But in the background lies the tribal mask, hanging on the white wall, with the look of awareness concerning matters that are happening in this house.

As Diouana prepares supper she reflects on a few things that shed light on her current situation. She asks herself, ‘What is this apron? What am I in this house? I came here for the children, where are they?’ and most importantly she asks, ‘Why did the madam send for me if the children aren’t with her?’ She takes a sit and chops some onions. She hopes, that after the dinner, they will take her to the city to see Nice, Monte Carlo, or Cannes. Once she gets paid by the madam, she looks forward to buying herself a new dress, shoes, and silk underwear so that she can get her picture taken at the beach.

The guests are seated at a table, enjoying their meal and conversation. Diouana’s only purpose there, is to serve them. The life she had envisioned, the idea of France she had created in her mind, seems to be a reality only those at the table fully enjoy. Instead of going to the beach she is stuck in the kitchen. That has now become her world, a confinement of sorts. The ideas Diouana has about Europe might come across as being simple minded, ridiculous, or even childishly naïve. But the presumption that Europe, or the west in general, is some type of earth-based paradise is not farfetched for most Africans then, and arguably now. Diouana’s perceptions of France and the material things it offers becomes reflective of the wider idea of how Europe poses itself to the rest of the world. Diouana’s outward appearance aligns with the makeup of modern European women. She dresses the part, has the look and the attitude to compliment it well. But more than this is Diouana’s inner world, a world that is driven far from her homeland in Senegal, where this fiction of Europe has taken full precedence over her reality. France and all its promises will change her life for the better. In Antibes is where her dreams will finally come true. So she believes.

He finally tells her that if she wishes to find a job as a maid she will have to wait at a certain location where all the women who search for work meet. She agrees. He takes her to the location, and she begins her long wait for the possible prospects that someone might pick her for work amidst all the women waiting there. Diouana takes her place at the curb with the rest of the women. A white lady walks in from behind them. Everyone quickly realises that the lady is in search of a maid. They get up and rush at her. The lady is overwhelmed and pushes the women away. But behind the women and all the commotion sits Diouana. The white lady picks her out and decides to hand her the job. The white lady happens to be the French madam we see Diouana work for when the movie begins. And now, given her newfound employment, Diouana joyfully returns home, full of life, vibrantly telling everyone around her that she found work with white folks. She tells the young boy with the mask that she needs his mask, promising to pay him fifty francs for it. Before he even agrees she snatches the item from his hand and heads off with it. On her first day of work, she hands her madam the mask, oddly enough as a gift to the madam for her employment. The madam’s house is adorned with African masks, and her husband in his excitement adds this item to the rest of his hung collections, like trophies on display.

Diouana gets acquainted with the madam’s home, and she is soon introduced to the children – three little kids, two boys and a girl. Diouana returns to her narration, informing us that in Dakar all she had to do was take care of the kids. She did not have to cook, or clean, or do the laundry. Her job was simply to take the kids on walks and to get them to and from school. The camera pans off to her and the kids going about the urban district of Dakar. Then the scene cuts back to the kitchen. We are back in France, in the closed world of indoor European living, the very confinement of Diouana’s life. Given Diouana’s backstory we are now provided the much-needed context of her current predicament. Her situation is now seen differently as she serves her madam and guests tea and coffee. It finally dawns on her that her coming to Antibes was a scam, that she had been led under the false pretence that she would be an au pair to the kids. The situation in the home only gets worse from here on.The madam’s treatment of Diouana gets worse and Diouana’s place in this home begins to have a negative effect on her. Then at about twenty-seven minutes into the film one of the most important parts of Diouana’s internal dialogues is played out. She stands in front of the mask, she stands as if speaking directly to it, as if this mask was her only portal into a fading world – her home perhaps, in Dakar.

She gains enough confidence in herself again and slips on her high heels. She heads towards the kitchen to conduct her work in her renewed confidence. But she is stopped in her tracks. The madam tells her to remove the shoes, that the kids have arrived and the picnic is over. But Diouana being the feisty person that she is, matches the madam’s energy. She removes her shoes and leaves them on the ground for the madam to pick up. She then walks to the kitchen and helps herself to some breakfast. It is then when the madam finally approaches her and asks her if she is ill or something. Diouana responds that she isn’t. The madam warns her that if she won’t see to her duties, she won’t eat. She replies to the madam, but only with the voice in her mind – that if she won’t eat, she won’t take care of the children.

The madam’s husband arrives with letters. One of them is addressed to Diouana, coming from her mother. The man offers to read the letter to her. Diouana’s mother writes that she feels abandoned. That she is sick and poor. And that while Diouana lives her life in luxury overseas she sits and suffers, longing for a daughter that seems to have forgotten her. The words hurt Diouana. But what hurts her even more is her mother’s appraisal for her employers. She steadily grows in disappointment because her mother doesn’t know these people like she does.

The man decides to help Diouana write a letter in response to her mother. Diouana sits silently across the table, with the letter in hand. The man begins scribing, coming up with all sorts of things to say. Diouana is barely given a chance to have a word. He goes on writing a response in his own words. And as he does this Diouana rips the letter apart, piece by piece. She walks away from the table and heads to her room, clarifying that her mother did not write that letter, and that it came from the hand of the madam and her husband as a way to manipulate her and the current situation.

Diouana descends further into herself, into her mind, into the interiority of it all, and calls herself a prisoner – her madam’s prisoner, that no one from her family is here, and that is why she is their slave. Her isolation, she concludes, is the reason they are able to treat her how they want. She is cut off from her people, her normative life, her Dakar. The madam and her husband decide to go away for a while. They leave their son in Diouana’s care. But Diouana shows no interest in watching over the boy. She lets him do what he wants. She pulls off the mask from the wall and decides to go into her room. The boy calls out to her, wanting to play. But Diouana has reached her limits. She simply ignores him. The scene then cuts back to Senegal again, giving us another flashback of Diouana’s life before she had left. Diouana is seen walking with the man she had taken the picture with, the man that had helped her secure her job. He is clearly in love with her, but her mind is in France. In fact, that is the only thing that will be on her mind for a long time to come. Her child-like obsessiveness with France bothers him a lot. But her mind is set, there’s clearly nothing much he can do about it. He wants to touch her, to feel her close to him, but her jittery spirit fuelled by the prospects of travelling to Europe keeps her bouncing around. Her excitement leads her to climbing over a World War II memorial, something considered sacred to the country. Her lover calls out to her, and yells at her, telling her that what she is doing is demeaning. And Diouana, like a kid that confuses a parent’s reproaches as encouragement for continued bad behaviour, skips and hops over the memorial, without a care in her mind that her actions are symbolic of a greater fate she is about to suffer.

She returns to her neighbourhood and sees the boy to whom the mask belonged to. And instead of giving him the fifty francs she promised him, she hands the boy a toy car made of wire, as if that would have been a fair exchange. The boy looks at Diouana unimpressed as she wanders off, his eyes piercing into the camera. We then cut back to France. The madam and her husband return from their outing. They walk in to find the house amess. Their son is seated laying on the chair and Diouana is in her room, daydreaming on the bed. The madam notices that the mask had been removed from the wall. She tells her husband, and he approaches Diouana to investigate. On his way in she accidently tosses her apron in anger at his feet. He is shocked by this. Are you ill, he asks. No, she says. He then assumes that it is money she needs. He draws some money out of his wallet and starts pressing it into her hands. Diouana dramatically falls to the ground in tears, down to his feet. The man is confused. He calls out to his wife, asking her what Diouana’s commotion was about. They are both left confused. He walks out of the room, but she remains. Diouana is still on the floor, not concerned about the money that was just thrown at her, the value she once ascribed to it is now gone, worthless and meaningless concerning the state of her mind. The madam then sees the mask placed next to Diouana’s things. She quickly grabs it and celebrates that it has been found. But Diouana jolts up and holds onto the other half of the mask, forcing it back into her hands. Both ladies fight over it, each claiming that it is theirs to keep.

The madam’s husband finally comes back to quell the fight. He tells his wife that the mask belongs to her, she can keep it. They both walk out of the room, leaving the mask for Diouana. It is my mask, says Diouana internally. She holds more pride in the value of this mask than in the money they threw at her. She gathers the cash and picks up her apron, walks to the couples living area and places both items – cash for the man and apron for the madam – at the table, her final remark, a direct message to her employers, those responsible for her bondage. She walks to the bathroom, with all her luggage and the mask. White tiles are plastered around the walls. She fills the tub with water. A bloodied knife is then seen on the floor. Her body, now lifeless, is floating in a bath mixed with blood and water.

We are then shown a beautiful scene at the beach, filled with white people enjoying their time busking in the sun. A man holds up a newspaper. The camera zooms into one of the headlines: Young Negress Slashes Throat In Employers Bathroom. The madam and her husband sit in the lounge, contemplating what had just happened. They are both genuinely concerned. The husband tells his wife that he will leave for Dakar. They gather Diouana’s belongings, and he sets off. He reaches Dakar and begins his search for Diouana’s family. He is eventually helped by someone who leads him to the exact location of Diouana’s neighbourhood. He arrives and meets the man of letters, the public educator. The little boy, the rightful owner of the mask appears and sees his mask in the arms of this white man. The boy follows this man, keeping an eye on his mask. The madam’s husband is then led to Diouana’s home where he meets her mother. He hands her Diouana’s briefcase with all her belongings.

He then gets some money out to give her. Diouana’s mother stands there. She looks at him, giving him no reaction. Her hand does not extend to receive the money. The white man is confused once again. This is the second time someone has refused to take his money. Diouana’s mother walks off. He still doesn’t get it. The man of letters sheds some light. He tells him that she does not want your money. Indeed for this mother, how could her daughter’s life be reduced to a few thousand francs? Her loss is beyond the material, maybe something the western conscious has struggled to intone about the human condition. The man leaves the premises in confusion. But the boy remains. He picks up the mask and finally wears it again. He then follows the man. Everywhere he goes there follows the mask, just a few steps behind him, pursuing him like a haunting. He finally reaches his car and darts off towards the road. The mask remains watching him. Then it begins dropping, revealing the face of this little boy, staring into the camera endlessly. Then it ends.

So Black Girl, or La noire de... for the French, is a brief exploration of these issues from a filmmaker who understood and felt both sides of the coin. Coming in at around sixty minutes the film itself is not a long watch. And given that this was Sembène’s first feature film, the quality undoubtedly speaks of the talent and directorial eye he already had. Mbissine Thérèse Diop’s leading performance as Diouana fits the role well. She managed to carve herself a convincing portrait of Diouana’s personality, albeit that acting wasn’t her primary interest in life at this particular time. Once again, African cinema continues to be a place of deep cultural and social reflection. Sembène, like many others through their works, has incorporated African modern life into a medium and a language that is barely discussed or given the attention it deserves. Sembène could have chosen to be a fulltime writer. But he decided to make movies instead. He did this because he recognised the general impact films would have had on African communities that were developing an appetite for modern cinema. Sembène filled this gap and satisfied this appetite.

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