Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 06/26/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, June 26, 2020

Girlhood (Céline Sciamma, 2014)

Karidja Touré in Girlhood

Cast: Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh, Mariétou Touré, Idrissa Diabaté, Simina Soumaré, Dielika Coulibaly, Cyril Mendy, Djibril Gueye, Binta Diop, Chance N'Guessan. Screenplay: Céline Sciamma. Cinematography: Crystel Fournier. Production design: Thomas Grézaud. Film editing: Julien Lacheray. Music: Jean-Baptiste de Laubier.

Girlhood is an altogether absorbing look at young lives in the Paris banlieue, which might also be a description of Mathieu Kassovitz's celebrated 1995 film La Haine. But the difference between the two is striking and important: La Haine was about young men, a Jew, a Black, and an Arab, and worked out its story a little self-consciously as a commentary on the relations among three major ethnic groups. Its writer-director and its three principals were male, with all the implications of privilege that suggests. But Girlhood was written and directed by a woman, and its protagonist is female, a Black teenager named Marieme (Karidja Touré), who is determined to go her own way in life. Told that she doesn't have the grades to go to high school but should choose vocational education instead, Marieme rebels, determined to find her way against the odds. She falls in with a group of girls -- the French title was Bande de Filles, which might be translated Gang of Girls -- and adopts their ways, which include a little shoplifting, a little bullying of smaller kids for money, and excursions into Paris for the bright lights of the big city. They also include fights with other gangs, and when the leader of Marieme's gang, Lady (Assa Sylla), loses a fight and is embarrassed, Marieme, who has become known as "Vic," short for "Victory," takes on the winner of that fight and triumphs, stripping off the other girl's top and using a knife to cut away her bra as a trophy. Still, she must face the outside world. Her mother, Asma (Binta Diop), works as a maid in a large hotel and arranges for Marieme to take a job there, but she turns it down. Her life at home becomes intolerable when she sleeps with her boyfriend, Ismaël, and is beaten for being a slut by her older brother, Djibril (Cyril Mendy). So she goes to work as a runner for Abou (Djibril Gueye), a drug dealer, which gives her an income, a place to live, and some glimpse of the high life. But the end of the film finds her still solitary, still facing obstacles. Girlhood is a smart, sad movie with a deeply engaging performance by Touré, and a strong supporting cast.