Movie

In this day and age, when a classic film pops up in your Instagram, Tumblr, or Pinterest feed with a certain frequency, you know it’s worth a look. As fickle and fast-paced as the Internet may be, those moments of nostalgia can still stop you in your tracks, which is how I came upon the timeless beauty of Ousmane Sembéne’s Black Girl. It seemed every follow of mine knew of the enduring style and stirring beauty of the 1966 classic, a movie that established the Senegalese filmmaker’s expansive career and defined the sophisticated aesthetic of post-colonial Africa. And upon first watch, I, too, understood why it still dazzles.

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Photo: Courtesy of Filmi Domirev

The film centers on the struggles of Diouana, a young Senegalese beauty who travels one summer to Antibes in southern France to work as a housekeeper for a young French family. Picked up from her journey by her new bosses, Diouana has primly tied a silk handkerchief around her polished coiffure while a sophisticated tea dress cinches her waist; she’s hardly dressed for housework. With strands of pearls delicately clasped around her neck and sunburst earrings hanging from her ears, our heroine appears more ready for a cocktail party than the endless work that meets her at the small apartment she will maintain, much to her dismay. Cooking, cleaning, and getting paid for none of it, Diouana soon spirals, but she never looses her innate cool and poise. Even when confronted by her manipulative mistress as to why she’s been wearing the same ensemble of kitten heels and a polka-dot party frock for the last three weeks, Diouana never wavers. Style, for her, is a small rebellion in the face of her circumstances.

Truthfully, the costumes aren’t made up of much, but in many ways, this is their power. Investing in essentials and fine tailoring, Diouana creates a ladylike polish found as recently among Prada’s own demure designs this season. And with Sembéne!—a documentary chronicling the expansive career of the “father of African cinema”—having just been released last week, it’s safe to say Diouana’s look will soon be re-blogged again and again.

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Photo: Courtesy of Filmi Domirev

The post Why the Style of This Cult West African Movie Still Endures appeared first on Vogue.

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