April 2024 Film Club Short Notes
Douvan ja ka leve
“Douvan” is so natural. It is what it is. While searching out, with an open heart, and exploring.
Faith…
Catholicism, Protestantism, Voudun. All construed as infrastructures of faith, while being explored as possibly cults by one group or another. And, like a cult transports, so does faith. We experience spirituality as a result of travel - through time and space - whether travel catalyzed by imperialism, and/or the kidnapping wrought by slavery: Catholicism as the result of European imperialism; Protestantism, the result of American imperialism; and Voudun, the result of being spirited away from West Africa.
…and Madness
What’s astounding is that in the film - Protestantism, the conversion - is expected by the convert, to come with a period of illness. The lwa which were previously served by the convert torment the convert. But who gets sick? Who is considered sick? The juxtaposition of the woman considered “mad” in the asylum, or the filmmaker’s mother, vs. the men under the tree, the man at the lottery, they have their freedom and seem not to be deemed “mad.”
The church scenes are such standout moments. We see the interplay of worship and madness, the overlap of them - how one undulates into the other.The mystery of what is occurring in the ecstatic moment.
We see the interplay of worship and madness, the overlap of them - how one undulates into the other.The mystery of what is occurring in the ecstatic moment.
Such a Singular Voice
This film is guided by the filmmaker as protagonist, and the protagonist as narrator. We still get a myriad of perspectives from this protagonist as narrator; still get a prism of refracted light. This singular voice, even in conversation with others, is the focus and gives us focus. The singular voice of this narrator coheres what are very disparate inputs that entwine the disparate strands of conversations, prayers, quotidian sounds, and pleas by those consigned to the asylum, together in resonance with this singular voice.
