A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

by assigning the explanatory logic and its ensuing linguistic devices to the voice of the woman (Linda Peckham) whose English accent (actually South African) is easily detectable. It was a real challenge for me to try to bring out these subtleties of translation and to remain consistent in the distinction of the three discursive modes. Moreover, the only voice in the film that can afford to have some kind of authority (not media or academic institutionalized authority, but rather a form of insider's assertion) is the mediated voice of the people, the low voice that quotes the villagers' sayings and other statements by African writers. My voice gives little anecdotes and personal feelings.

The distinction made between the voices is not a rigid one; the voices of the women of color at times overlap in what they say and how they speak. All three voices are joined together in the last third of the film, when the viewers see images of the Fon's lake-dwellings. The two

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voices of the women of color (Barbara Christian and myself) meet here in the sequence about this village, whose people's income thrives on tourism. The meeting concerns the controversy of giving and taking. As is fairly well-known, in the first-world/third-world relationship, what may assert itself in appearance as "giving" very often turns out to be nothing but a form of taking and taking again. The problematic of donor and acceptor is thus played out in that part in the sound track: for example, the Linda Peckham voice says, "They call it giving"; my voice says, "We call it self-gratification"; the Barbara Christian voice says, "We call it self-gratification." This can be said to be the only place in the film where the first-world and third-world voices work in opposition. Most of the time, it was important for me that the voices meet or not meet, but that they are not just set up in opposition to one another.

The voice of Western logic quotes a number of Western writers, including Cixous, [Gaston] Bachelard, and Éluard. For me, these quotations are very relevant to the context of the dwelling I was in. I don't situate myself in opposition to them just because the writers are Westerners. Actually, in a public debate, a white man resentfully asked me why I quoted Heidegger and added, "Why not let

us

quote him?" This is like saying that I have encroached on some occupied territory and that the exclusive right to use Heidegger belongs to Euro-Americans. Such ethnocentric rationale is hard to believe (although not the least surprising) when you think of such figures of modernity as Picasso or Brecht (to mention just two): what would their works be like without their exposure to African sculpture or to Japanese and Chinese theater? History constantly needs to be rewritten. In fact, whether I like it or not, Heidegger is also part of my hybrid culture.

MacDonald:

In effect the sound track is a nexus for

all

these voices. And all these voices meet in you; you're not only a first-person observer, you have internalized many voices.

Trinh:

Exactly. The place of hybridity is also the place of identity.

MacDonald:

Actually, different forms of culture are present in Africa; there's no point in pretending that African peoples live in isolation from the world.

Trinh:

Sometimes you can never win. On the one hand, I encounter reactions such as "Why don't you show more of the trucks and the bicycles we see all the time in African villages?" When I hear such questions, I can tell the type of villages the questioner is familiar with; he may have been to rural Africa, but he seems to have no idea of the villages I went to, which are fairly remote and difficult of access. On the other hand, some viewers ask, "Why show all the signs of industrial society in these villages?"referring here to the way the camera lingers,

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for example, on the white doll a child is playing with in

Reassemblage,

a red plastic cup, or a woman's pink plastic shoe in

Naked Spaces

.

At the same time as it is reassuring for certain Western viewers to see evidence of their industrial society spreading over third-world rural landscapes, it is irritating for others to see the camera gazing at some of these industrialized objects a few seconds too long. The shooting of

Reassemblage

informed me of the potential of a cultural difference whose manifestations neither oppose nor depend on the Westin other words, neither succumb to assimilation nor remain entirely pristine in its traditions. My decision was precisely to work in the remote countryside where circulation was mainly either on foot, by bicycyle, or by pirogue. As a result of this choice, whenever any element of industrial society was found in such context, it was very visible.

MacDonald: