daughters of dust

Daughters of the Dust is a film that I might watch several more times and still feel uncertain about all of its meanings – but if Julie Dash (producer, director, and writer) wanted it to be clear, she could have developed a more structured and straightforward plot, so her intention must be hidden in the film’s complexity.
The film began with several scenes of characters I did not yet know and unfamiliar places, making for a confusing beginning to a story that became only slightly more logical as it went on. The Peazant family has always lived on an island off of the coast of the south-eastern states. The film begins with a few family members returning from the north, along with a couple of companions, to recruit the rest of the family to join them. Some of the film was frustrating, due to disjunctive editing, including unexplained clips of hands pouring dust onto the ground, and dialogue that was often hard to follow. Thankfully, for a scene that was confusing or unresolved, there was often beautiful cinematography in a scene to follow. If I wasn’t completely following the plot, I could at least appreciate the scenes on the beach with striking colors of the food and place settings of a large family picnic or the contrast between the girls’ dark braids and white dresses when they were dancing and spinning on the sand. Most interesting to me was the character of Eula’s unborn child – a joyful little girl who followed her parents around as they individually struggled with the complexity of her conception. Her father, Eli, was perhaps taking the knowledge of Eula’s rape the hardest, and the child said that she had to convince her dad that she was his. I hoped that the film would allow us to see Eli’s interaction with his daughter, but the film ended before Eula gave birth. I enjoyed aspects of the film, but when it was finished I felt like the meaning in its characters and symbols was reserved for those involved in the production or those already familiar with this culture and people.