The second film I've watched for the FREN375. The tone is calm, the color is plain but the scenes are moving, satiric and comic. The BGM within the film is played by Mambéty's brother Wasis Diop and is pretty chill and co-existing with the character Sili. Sili is a young beggar girl who is on crutches and confidently makes her own way through a city of obstacles and becomes the first girl to sell the newspaper Le Soleil in the competitive male-dominated world.
I like every time when shooting Sili, the film is bathing within a warm sunlight which illuminates the little girl's face and her smile and unfailing courage, in turn, illuminate the screen. The last scene presents an explicit hope and "throws to the sea". An interesting metaphor here refers to regarding political and slavery emancipation as the sea. Sili asks "What do we do now?" after francophone Africa has been independent and based on self-reliance without its former colonial infrastructure. Her friend, Babou, hoists her onto his back and carries her through a crowded arcade of the market. responding "we continue". An alternative form of economic development within the Western-centered free market and ethnocentric globalization is now ready for being tested.
Explored through the prism of childhood, this film challenges issues of power relations through economic dependence, disability and gender, blending with subtlety fantastical and folktale elements with social realism, to create a moving and refreshingly optimistic story of courage and resilience.
