Zeba Blay in Shadow & Act:
...a visualization of Frantz Fanon’s 'Wretched of the Earth'
...a visualization of Frantz Fanon’s 'Wretched of the Earth'
...Goran Olsson’s “Concerning Violence” is out. It’s a documentary film that doesn’t speak directly to the events in Ferguson, New York, Mexico City, or Hong Kong, but still presents questions and ideas that apply to oppressed peoples here and across the globe.More here
Best known for 2011’s explosive “Black Power Mixtape,” Goran has here crafted a kind of adaptation of Martinique-born, French-Algerian writer and activist Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth.”
Highly controversial upon its 1961 publication, the piece argued that the only way to bring about revolution, the only true answer to colonization and oppression, is through violence. This concept is explored thoroughly in the documentary, with its nine chapters, its preface (featuring Columbia University professor Gayatri Chakovorty), and rousing conclusion.
Narrated by the clear, powerful voice of singer Lauryn Hill, the film sets Fanon’s own words, superimposed onto the screen in big white letters, against never before seen 16mm archival footage of oppressed rebel fighters in several African nations including Angola, Burkina Faso, Liberia, and Mozambique. The effect is striking - words condemning the colonizers of these countries juxtaposed with stark and brutal imagery: women and children with missing arms and legs, injured soldiers in the throes of agonizing pain, harrowing night time raids filled with seemingly never-ending gunfire.