The Deepened Roots of Daughters of the Dust

Daughters of the Dust at first caught me off guard. I was annoyed that most of the movie, I did not understood what any of the women and men were saying. Without knowing what the characters were saying, I did not know the plot. Yes, I understood that these women were going to the Americas, learning about the modern times, and having conflicts with new ideas such as religion…that was basically it. It wasn’t until I read the reading that I began to understand the context of the narrative, and the reasoning behind this film. This is a film about family, and passes the Bechdel Test: 1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it, 2. Who talk to each other, 3. About something besides a man. 

In addition, this film is not the ordinary mainstream film, it breaks a lot of barriers. First, it has “intentionally broken with mainstream filmmaking approaches that too often reduce the complexities of black life to homogenized, ready-made film commodities...” (Everett). Second, “Her goal was to tell a story as an African griot would, with an unfolding, like women’s weaving” (Everett). Third, it is not plot driven, but “heavily influenced by foreign films…” (Everett). Fourth (and fifth), she experimented with film speeds and speculative fiction. This film isn’t supposed to be easy for the audience to watch, because it is not the norm…especially if the audience member is white. Dash desires to “rewrite cinematic images of black women and break completely with traditional film stereotypes” (Everett). We are watching these women through a different lens, not an urban setting with gangs, poverty, etc. or a civil war/slavery in America context. We are like the character Trula. Dash says, “Trula was the vehicle used to represent the audience. This is why she does not speak. She is like the audience—she does not understand the dialect [nor] the religion” (Everett). We don’t understand this film because it breaks away from the usual film portrayal of African Americans. 

Daughters of the Dust is a “more accurate representation of African disaporic cultural traditions”, filled with Gullah dialect which “reflects the dislocated Africans’ retention of remnants of their language” (which we have to really listen while watching), and the influence of African American jazz/blues on the visual aesthetic (Everett). What we see and experience in this film is ancestry/roots. Dash describes this film as “a film that was like a heirloom itself… I wanted to create these tableaux images like frescos in your mind…” (Everett).  I hope the next time I watch a film like this, I do not get frustrated at the abnormality, but embrace it, because Dash really reveals a whole new outlook on African American women.