“This must be the most desolate place on earth.” is uttered in this ethnographic trailblazer from Julie Dash, and the said place is Igbo Landing, on St. Simons Island off the Georgia coast, where lives Gullah islanders, an African-American people distinctively preserves its African traditions and origins.

The story of DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST takes place in the turn of the 20th century, and pivots around the Peazant Clan when the family is facing an impending separation as most of them decide to pursue a new, modern life northward in the mainland, whereas the elderly matriarch Nana (Cora Lee Day), refuses to leave the island where she is born and raised. Weaving its non-linear narrative with a voice-over of the unborn child (Warren), whose dubious parentage is a scathing testimony of Gullah people’s sufferance to the injustice and oppression (although they are not explictly presented here), strewing flashback, spectacular shots of its unique topography, myths (water-walking), rituals (baptism) and supernaturalism (a young girl’s ghost or a surreal shot in the graveyard) intermittently along the way, yet, on a less favorable note, its banally synthesized accidental music (save for some tribal rhythm) fails to leaven the narrative as the icing on the cake, often irritatingly takes us away from its spatio-temporal environs.

It is a shade daunting for a first-time viewer to suss the whole picture of who is who and their familial relations immediately, but it is rewardingly the women’s voices are predominantly heard through a handful of strong characters.Cora Lee Day’s Nana, an obstinate heathen refuses to evangelism but cleaves to memories and mementos of the past in her own superstitious mindset, is a stunning exemplar of what energy and impact those underemployed dark-skinned thespians can generate if they are granted a platform, she is electrifying as the old guard battling mortality and being forgotten, subsists a wisp of spiritual tenacity that becomes her lifeline.Barbarao plays Yellow Mary, one of Nana’s many granddaughters, the black sheep practicing the oldest profession, returns for the last supper with her same-sex lover Trula (Hoosier), is at loggerheads with Haagar (Moore), Nana’s intractable granddaughter-in-law, who aims to sever her family entirely from the backwater, represents the aggressive side of the polarity. Finally, Alva Rogers as Eula, mother of the unborn child and wife of Nana’s great grandson Eli (Anderson), staggeringly performs a quasi-possessed plea of understanding and unification in the climax, conjuring up a most theatrical moment in this otherwise self-reflective, desultory essay honoring Gullah culture and underlining the inexorable generational shift and a muted understanding thereof.

An oddity disinterred from oblivion, and forever enshrinedas the first feature film directed by an African-American woman distributed theatrically in the United States, Dash's ethereal debut enters that year's Sundance and is recognized for its otherworldly cinematography, but its groundbreaking genesis doesn’t parlay into a successive big screen career for Dash, who is relegated to small screen works mostly and his second theatrical film FUNNY VALENTINES arrives in 1999, and that’s it, does she deserve another chance? For shizzle!

#BFI #Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022 故事完成度很高，視聽呈現(xiàn)的詩意風(fēng)格也高度統(tǒng)一，整部電影以打破時(shí)間界限講述發(fā)生在這片土地上的故事。開始看覺得會(huì)是一個(gè)關(guān)于“土地”的故事，開場(chǎng)就是一個(gè)航拍搭配搭配獨(dú)白，像極了《我是古巴》的開場(chǎng)，隨后又感覺是種族，是女性，是信仰，是家庭，最后發(fā)現(xiàn)還是把一切回歸到了人，回歸到了根。

視覺上，由于涉及到過去現(xiàn)在和未來，影片大量采用抽幀的處理方式，時(shí)不時(shí)還會(huì)搭配升降格，讓整部電影的神秘色彩非常強(qiáng)，緩慢的推拉焦使用的也比較頻繁，用于體現(xiàn)角色內(nèi)心狀態(tài)，構(gòu)圖上也會(huì)幫助敘事，比如特寫的人物處于畫面邊緣也很好的利用畫面講故事。光影上在結(jié)尾的處理印象很深，大量的光線介入讓畫面神圣感比較強(qiáng)。當(dāng)然整部影片給我印象最深的仍是那幾處畫面的呈現(xiàn)，水面站人那場(chǎng)戲，利用反射把人物，木像和周圍景色完全融為一體，呈現(xiàn)出一幅油畫般質(zhì)感的絕美畫面。沙灘傘下的戲，也是很好的利用構(gòu)圖呈現(xiàn)出破傘之下的三人那獨(dú)特的魅力。

聽覺上，想起了去年看的《女人們的談話》，不知道是否對(duì)這部作品有借鑒，采用了完全相同的敘事模式，借用“未來人”的畫外音結(jié)合“現(xiàn)在”的講述者的臺(tái)詞讓故事敘述者與故事之間的關(guān)聯(lián)性變得模糊，從而讓影片的宿命感更強(qiáng)，整體還是比較喜歡這樣的呈現(xiàn)，結(jié)合視覺上的抽幀和故事上的非線性敘事讓影片整體風(fēng)格統(tǒng)一度很高。

角色上，其實(shí)很難像到如此眾多的角色呈現(xiàn)還能做到每個(gè)角色都帶有極強(qiáng)的力量。尤其是結(jié)尾時(shí)把一切回歸后，在與開場(chǎng)呼應(yīng)讓影片達(dá)到了一個(gè)非常完美的閉環(huán)。

不喜歡的點(diǎn)，首先是視覺上大量的使用淺焦鏡頭，雖然在大多數(shù)時(shí)候?qū)εc焦段的把握都可以讓觀眾非常好的把注意力集中，但是幾次虛焦或焦點(diǎn)在錯(cuò)誤的位置還是讓觀眾從整體的詩意中抽離了出來。其次是配樂的使用，大量的民族樂器讓影片整體感覺都非常厚重，但是有時(shí)候偏流行甚至帶有一些中國(guó)民族風(fēng)格的配樂還是讓我不會(huì)出戲。