Cast:
Cora Lee Day (Nana Peazant), Adisa Anderson (Eli Peazant), Alva Rogers (Eula Peazant), Kay-Lynn Warren (Unborn Child / Narrator), Kaycee Moore (Haagar Peazant), Cheryl Lynn Bruce (Viola Peazant), Tommy Hicks (Mr. Snead), Bahni Turpin (Iona Peazant), M. Cochise Anderson (St. Julien Lastchild), Barbara-O (Yellow Mary), Trula Hoosier (Trula), Umar Abdurrahman (Bilal Muhammad), and Cornell Royal ("Daddy Mac" Peazant) Written and Directed by Julie Dash.
Review:
“I decided to let the story unravel itself in a way in which an African griot would tell the story, since that’s part of our tradition. So the story kind of unfolds throughout this day and a half, in various vignettes. It unfolds, comes back, it unfolds and it comes back.”
The first and easiest thing to say is that Daughters of the Dust was the first theatrical film by an African American woman to gain a wide release. The director for the film is Julie Dash, a native New Yorker that had a father with a Gullah background (having immigrated from the Sea Islands of Georgia, which she referred to as "our Ellis Island"). She entered the world of study with the Studio Museum of Harlem (where she discovered her love of cinema with films such as Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin) before going on to the City College of New York. She studied psychology for a time before being accepted into the college's film school. She would graduated with a degree in Film Production in 1974 and move on to Los Angeles for further work, which included UCLA Film School (owing to her and other fellow directors who studied there at the time, she is generally referred to being part of the "L.A. Rebellion" film movement, although she has described it as merely "a cute little name"). She was influenced by numerous genres in cinema that ranged from the avant-garde to Russian cinema that wanted to push the envelope of visual storytelling; discovering authors like Alice Walker influenced her away from documentaries and into making narrative films. Her first short came with the experimental piece Four Women (1975), which explored stereotypes alongside a "choreopoem" dance performance. Dash continued with shorts such as Illusions (1982), which dealt with racial discrimination with the workplace in Hollywood in the 1940s for color and gender. She would also spend time directing for music videos, but the dream of a feature film with her at the helm would only come around before she would turn 40 (after she and Arthur Jafa helped make a short film to drum up interest). Daughters of the Dust, released 30 years ago this year, has proven to be the only theatrical film that Dash has directed, as she once stated that "Hollywood and mainstream television are still not quite open to what I have to offer", with one calling her film a fluke despite it attracting crowds. In any case, she has continued work in shorts alongside television to this very day, a career of nearly a half-century that includes a novel that serves as a sequel to this film and a "making-of" book of the film while also serving as a teacher for film at Morehouse College and Howard University. It has endured in the three decades that has followed its release, ranging from preservation with the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress to having an influence on visual albums like Lemonade.
The film was inspired by her father's background that she had initially thought of to do for a film in 1975. Thirteen years later, she received financing to make a feature film with the help of PBS' American Playhouse, and the feature would ultimately be made on a budget of $800,000. Considerable time would be spent in making it a worthy period piece fitting 1902 within furniture and fabrics alongside teaching the actors about the Gullah's Creole language (such as bringing in culinary anthropologist Vertamae Grosvenor with her background in the language). The main sticking point is one that will either attract you or turn you away: it is a dream-like film that runs at 112 minutes but feels like 18, complete with usage of the Gullah language (also referred to as Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole English, and Geechee, which has an estimated usage by over 5,000 people in the island regions of South Carolina and Georgia) at times that fits the story that Dash wanted to tell for nearly two decades. You either will connect with its resonating feelings involving separation or you won't - in that case, I thought it was fine. If it had been told by a different filmmaker, one who wasn't absorbed in the material involving migration and the divide between spirituality and beyond, it most certainly would have been a devastating bore. It only makes sense to try to make a distinct movie about the culture of the Gullah, one who had their own distinct African American culture. For those who desire what it yearns to show about the way of life without compromise - in other words, those who buy into what it yearns to say in the visual sense without an easy narrative will fit right at home here. I can't necessarily say it is a great film, mostly because it works to a point in terms of meaningful payoff and also because it really is just fine - distinct, but fine is a good word to go with when talking about something that has its distinct place within independent and women's cinema. The actors do their part in playing to the immersion factor of a time long ago that start with Day and her gripping presence, one that carries the spirit of the past with nothing wasted. Anderson and Rogers play the struggle in family life fairly alright while Warren narrates the film as one would expect from a narrative that jumps around from time to time being told by a youth (whose character isn't born...yet). The rest are fine, and no one really blends too much into the background when it comes to those little moments that jump at you, such as the final moments spent on the island with the family as one whole. One thing that certainly shines as well is the look of the film, one that is quite striking in crispness that invites the viewer in to an interesting moment with Arthur Jafa (who also served as a producer) deserving the credit in his cinematography. At any rate, while the film is certainly a different kind of experience in terms of period piece family drama, it has a welcome place for those who seek perspective on a culture and the folks that lived (and in spirit still live) in those days of yesteryear that will work for those who have the patience and appreciation for what it yearns to say from a director that deserved better.
Next Time: Clueless.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
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