Here is another film that feels more like a documentary than anything with a straightforward narrative. It’s an account of the lifestyle of the African-American Gullah people who live on islands off the eastern coast of the United States. It’s a remarkable independent film made by Julie Dash, herself an African-American woman, as predictably no major studio would touch the project. While this is truly as spellbinding as everyone says it is, I fear that it is best to come prepared by reading up on the culture somewhat first as otherwise many details are likely to escape a casual audience.

A child, as yet unborn at the time, narrates the story of the Peazant family. She is the future daughter of Eli and Eula but was conceived when Eula was raped by an unknown man whose identity she refuses to reveal. This causes agony to Eli who feels that Eula isn’t his wife any longer. The family plans to move from the island to the mainland in search of a better future. To commemorate the occasion one of them, Viola, brings a photographer Mr. Snead, and Yellow Mary, who has long been exiled to the city for some unmentioned disgrace, returns. The occasion also exposes some rifts in the family. The matriarch Nana wants them to remember their African roots and insists that they will still be connected even as the different branches of the family move to different places. But her granddaughters are Christians who insist that life on the islands was horrible and they should leave the bad memories and superstitious beliefs behind. Interspersed through the events of the day are stories of the past and perhaps future as they remember where they came from and how things were like before slavery was abolished.

This is another film that is rather difficult to parse as you need to work out which scenes are set in the past and which are set in the present, who everyone is and what is myth and what is real. It is astonishingly dense with detail, including the kinds of food they prepare for the feast on that day, and the objects and rituals that Nana holds to that some of the younger generation condemn as voodoo. The cinematography is sheer visual poetry, so much so that I am surprised that this isn’t better known as a reference. The sounds are authentic too. Nana for example speaks in a Creole that requires subtitles while the others speak English but with a Gullah accent. There is even the sound of Islamic prayers as one distant cousin belongs to another group who are Muslims. This is truly an artistic masterpiece and it is a tragedy that director Julie Dash was not able to obtain financing for further film projects after this and has to move to television work.

It’s notable how not a single white person is seen anywhere in this film and while there are male characters in here, the focus is squarely on the women. This is a film that makes no concessions or apologies at all as to what it is about. At the same time, it is richly nuanced in showing the conflicts among the family. I love how the film doesn’t automatically accept Nana’s sayings as pure truth with some of the others claiming that they should modernize and educate themselves. It also demonstrates the process of mythmaking as part of their cultural identity as an old story of their ancestors miraculously walking on water to return to Africa is revealed to be an ugly episode of mass suicide instead. I’d bet that there are far more depth in here than I’ve managed to pick up however as I’d previously never even known that such a people as the Gullah ever existed in the US. You really need to have read up on these peoples first before being able to fully appreciate this film.

I confess that this film isn’t as close to my heart as some other masterpieces because it is about a culture that is so unfamiliar to me. But it is plain to see what an outstanding film this is in all respects. It was so far ahead of its time that it wasn’t properly acknowledged on its release and so its director was cheated out of what could have been a far more illustrious career. Anyway this film has gained in reputation and recognition since then and it’s always a pleasure to learn completely new facts about the world.