The Black Girl - Ousmane Sembene

     Throughout the course of the film Black Girl by Ousmane Sembene, a roller coaster of emotions were displayed, much like that of anyone. We have all been in a situation where we got really excited and then were let down and eventually turned to anger. For an extremely less meaningful and dramatic example, many people out of college go job hunting and try their best to get one related to their major but this doesn’t always happen. After a few weeks of trying, most people just want a job no matter the sort. The day they are accepted everything is filled with smiles and excitement, until they work for a few months and realize they hate their job. At this point people become miserable, less productive, and have no motivation to work anymore. This is what happened to Diouana but in a much more dramatic way.

                Once Diouana started to be mistreated by her French owners and constantly being told where her race and place were aloud, she became isolated and depressed. Every day was the same out lifeless routine that only ended up with her feeling more and more desperate to get out of this expensive hell. As the days continued to linger on, she finally cracked and stood up for herself by not doing any more work – Diouana was done. I really enjoyed how ­­Sembene built up the aggression but having Diouana become sad, then miserable, then sluggish and unmotivated, to standing up for herself. This showed a very natural expression to a misleading situation. Unfortunately, after this scene is where I became disappointed. I did not agree with the expedited timeline to her death. I felt as though a lot of time was missing and it was a quick jump. My suggestions would be to either show a few days of things getting worse, attempts to leave France but was denied freedom home, or even Diouana standing up for herself verbally and told the owners how she really felt. At least if she made an attempt to get away it would have seemed more realistic to me. I do appreciate the silent death and creating a ‘mess’ that the owners have to clean up, as if it is a taste of their own medicine, I just think it could have been done in a better way.