Simply Perfect

Simply A Masterpiece

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastions of these mores in America. Set in 1902.Allegedly, this is the first feature film directed by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States. That, in and of itself, makes it culturally important. But more so, I have to say I was not really aware of the Gullah people or that there are islands off the coast of South Carolina. I guess maybe I should know that from pirate lore or something, but it's so foreign to a Midwesterner.Anyway, this is an interesting look at that culture. And even though it may be fictional, I believe it captures the right feeling, or at least close enough to get those who are interested to look into it more.

Most of the other comments have described what I loved about the film. It's one of my all-time favorites. I may have had an advantage - having just returned from a year in Jamaica when I first saw the film - the language was understandable to me without the subtitles most of the time. I have to say - I don't understand the folks that didn't get it. This film spoke to something deep inside me...something that perhaps all women share, whatever their background or color. Yes, it deepens ones understanding of a particular time and of a particular culture...but for me it goes way beyond that. I can only say, if you haven't seen it, rent it - decide for yourself. You'll thank me :).

Daughters of the Dust is film that slits the eyes of spectators who have been fed only linear and simplistic narrative/plot dev'ts through hollywoodism and can't possibly fathom any other way of being/thinking. It is truly an excruciating film to watch for those who have not dreamt and lived the "double consciousness" of modernity, for those who do NOT want to recall and remember the fact of american quilombos, maroon societies, slave revolters and runaways who succesfully established another way of life, not based on european dominance. This story is about the struggles of maintaining that community in 1902, a turning point in the life of this one maroon society. Dash breaks with cinematic codes in her experimental reconstruction of historical memory...a forgotten episode in African american history, a forgotten place, re-calling back to life ancestors that had survived and thrived: The Gullahs, Peazant family, persisting, unerasable, as the unborn child running through our memory, coming out of our past, forging a new and alternative future: a future that rejects the limitations of western epistemology. The summoning of these images to screen from the unwritten (african) past provides its own logic and development which Dash successfully visualizes in a polyphonic tradition, many voices, multiple perspectives. She does not allow a simplistic and individualistic rendering of this history...NO!she allows the struggle of divergent african perspectives, Christian, Muslim, Africanist, Native American to emerge in the same frame, to address that age old question: To exist or not to exist, to bear witness or to forget. In order for this history to exist and bear witness, Julie Dash does not allow any conventional reductionary scheme of narrativity, her temporal references are not linear. Her story is told through palimpestic time, the past present and future, overlapping and disjunctive: rupturing our understanding of history/memory and identity. The conflict that drives the film's narrative is not individual ego/conventional good vs bad drama/or boy gets girl(Hollywoodism); the conflict is how will the communal memory of these African survivors be salvaged from the ravaging of modernism's erasure..We see the family eat their last supper as the rite of passage to a life on the other side, a side that the ancestors fought to diverge from...The film is testimony to the african ancestors and to the spirit of resistance of slave revolters. Many people have offered criticism of dash's "feminism." Feminism is a problematic concept to apply to this film, no it is not feminist, it is afro-centric, matri-focal, and woman, as bearer of culture and memory as mother to the community, becomes the embodiment of that struggle. (of course it is not "feminist": it doesn't speak about abortion law, equal pay, etc etc..this kind of feminism is eurocentric and simplistic..) Thank you Julie Dash, i am not african american but the tears poured down my face as i, too, recalled that life left behind, another time another place. A place where people, muslims/christians/indigenous or any other can actually co-exist peacefully side by side, respectful of each other's differences. The character who chose to leave her so called "civilized" mother at the last minute, to take off with her Native American lover..is one of the most powerful onscreen testimony of love between indigenous peoples that has ever been made.

The film Daughters of the Dust is argued to be a stand out film in the genre of feminist film theory. The film is to show a break from the traditional male and female roles in a society; to break away from the traditional narrative to represent the present, past, and future as one to show woman as a strong active influential being. Yet, it did not accomplish this task.The film's narrative has a circle feel bring elements of the past, present and future together as one unit in the form of the child with the indigo ribbon. Images of the enslaved people of the islands are counter set by images of the modern dressed family awaiting the boat to go to America's main land. The family is to be mainly formed on this island after slaves were brought there to work in the indigo market, it is to be formed around this one woman. She takes on the lead role of the family, the matriarch in this instance instead of the patriarch. This attempt to change from the patriarch fails for the matriarch takes on the same role with the same strong masculine tendencies. The feminist ideals and theories are also lost as the woman of the family cook and tend to the work of packing for the journey while the men are relaxing and talking the day away. Yet, as the woman of the family do work they argue and talk. These woman in turn are to represent the different woman of society; the audience sees the daughter, the mother, the wife, the modern social woman, the elderly, the religious, the rebellious and the quite individuals that make up all social structures.Having the present, past and future working together as one creates too much confusion in the eye of the audience. At different instances the ideas are hard to connect to the ideals of the film theory and follow the themes of the narrative for it jumps around too often. Not introducing all the characters is another flaw of the film. The audience is lost as to how they fit into this family, how they are important to the plot of the new daughter changing the lives of the family members in the mainland, and how they affect the feminist film theory. In the end, not all the questions or problems that the film poses are answered and not all the loose ends are tied up. The style chosen to show a strong feminist woman was made in a too particular way. It was made for only a small subset of society where not all persons could identify with the characters and care for the meaning of the migration to the mainland. Instead the film creates a feeling of detachment, where the audience becomes uninterested. The ideals and theories for such a film are strong in context and in thought but fail to come across in the execution of the project. The true concept of the film is lost within the frame work of the circular plot and the feeling of randomness to some of the films content. This film does in turn do a good job of showing the complexities of a family, mixing old traditions and new as they are passed to different generations, and addressing fears that come when entering into a new society or world that one does not truly understand or know.