Daughters of the Dust Review
by Sarah_M DOT _Elkins DOT Wbst139 AT xerox DOT comMay 27th, 1992
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
A film review by Sarah M. Elkins
Copyright 1992 Sarah M. Elkins
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST: Produced in a 10-year labor of love by Julie Dash. Highest recommendation. Please go see it. If you can't catch it on the big screen, I noticed in the credits that American Playhouse helped sponsor it, so it might pop up on public television sometime.
Plot/kick-off: A black family which has been living pretty much in isolation since the Civil War on Ibo Landing, an island off the coast of South Carolina (near Kiawah and Edisto, for those who know the area) gathers in 1902 for a last meal before leaving for the mainland. Conflicts between family members will be recognized by anyone who's felt the pain of wanting to belong to something that's pulling itself apart.
Characters/acting: Nana, the family matriarch, a "salt-water African" (or a first-generation child?) who practices the old religion and wants to stay on the island. Her children, including the very Christian Viola, who wants her to come to keep the family together, and Yellow Mary, the richest of the family, outcast for being raped and becoming a prostitute. Nana's grandchildren, including Iona, who wants to stay with St. Julien Lastchild, the surviving Cherokee of the island swamplands, and Eula, pregnant by either her husband or a white rapist. There are other important characters whose names I didn't catch, including a citified photographer, commissioned to capture on film the family's last hours on the island. I covet his photographs.
Cinematography/FX: Possibly the most uniquely beautiful movie I have ever seen; certainly in my top 5. From the gnarled trees with Spanish moss to the water laying off the beach and shining in the tidal pools, from the girls in their white cotton dresses running and dancing, to the close-ups of conversations between Nana and her grandson-in-law in the graveyard, and between Eula, Yellow Mary and Yellow Mary's friend: the deceptively simple episodes are layered together to make a rich, complex masterpiece.
Score/Sound: Not much sound, other than the voices in conversation and sometimes in song; the background noise is formed by the water lapping on the beach and the ever-present wind
Violence: None, except the grandson-in-law's taking a board and smashing up some of his grandmothers' religious symbols, in rage that neither they nor he were able to protect his wife Eula from rape.
Language: No profanities that I recall, but people who haven't heard Gullah (the patois of English with Yoruba/Ibo intonation and grammar spoken by blacks on islands off the Carolina mainland) before may take a few moments getting adjusted to it before they can really follow what's going on (subtitles in the beginning of the movie help), and there were a few moments of speech which even I couldn't follow near the end, and I heard Gullah off and on growing up and in college.
Skin/situations: a kiss
Analysis: One of the best movies I have seen in years. Maybe the best; it will take me a while to absorb it, not that it can all be taken in at one sitting. Dash is a genius. This is not some mundane feel-good-and-forget-it flick, but there are moments which are -- I can't express it in words without trivializing it -- uplifting, cleansing, empowering. It's like a series of poems, pictures and short stories, interwoven in an outcircling spiral dance, with all parts touching somehow.
-Sarah
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