Contemporary film theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Contemporary film theory - Essay Example lm Black Girl, which was directed by Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene is different from the typical Hollywood motion picture because the people in the movie are not stars, the story is not depicting any sort of popular or political beliefs, nor is it showing the world in a mythical fashion, where an unbelievable turn of events changes the outcome of the characters lives. This film shows what is happening in Africa with absolute realism, making Black Girl an excellent example of third cinema. An important reason why Black Girl can be considered third cinema is because it depicts the third world in a realistic manner. This is the story of a young Senegalese woman who works for a French family in Dakar. Over the course of this film, this woman is constantly mistreated by the family that she works for, making her all too aware of the racial identity that she has been labelled with. She becomes caught up in the tension between the rich French people in the area and the African people who have been oppressed since colonial times. She finds that she does not fit in with either world, leaving her alone. This film does not attempt to make any excuses for the treatment of the woman, but simply shows how large of a problem racism is within the country. In a Hollywood-style movie, there would be some sort of character growth, which would probably result in a happy ending, but this would not have been a realistic ending for this type of movie. This film is an example of â€Å"the c inema that recognises in that struggle the most gigantic cultural, scientific, and artistic manifestation of our time, the great possibility of constructing a liberated personality with each people as the starting point - in a word, the decolonisation of culture† (Solanas and Getino). Third cinema films such as Black Girl are important because of the realism that they bring to the filmmaking world. They do not offer an idealized version of events, but rather strive to tell a story in the most