by José O Solá | March 9th, 2010
The movie Sankofa present’s a self-absorbed Black American fashion model on a photo shoot in Africa who is spiritually transported back to a plantation in the West Indies where she experiences first-hand the physical and psychic horrors of chattel slavery, and eventually the redemptive power of community and rebellion as she becomes a member of a freedom-seeking Maroon colony. The word “sankofa” is an Akan word that means, “We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; in order to enable us to understand why and how we came to be who we are today.”
It is through the symbolism of traveling back to the plantation days where we, our class, see the brutality of the plantation and slave system of the Caribbean. At the same time the plantation system created spaces in which the enslave Africans and their children maintain their humanity through processes of resistance and adaptation.
For our lecture we will explore how the movie demonstrated what we have been discussing during our lectures and through the readings assigned for the class.
I will begin the class by explaining an analysis developed by Eric Wolf and Sidney Mintz of the plantation.
José O Solá
I really enjoyed the film because it illustrated realities of Caribbean slave life. My favorite part of the film is the when the slaves were organizing a slave rebellion. I never understood the details of how slaves actually gathered together late a night to plot and organize a rebellion. The film did a good job upon fixing my imagination to visualize what a day in a life of a slave would have been like.
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This was a good film, I thought it was factual and interesting. However, they did not show too much of the brutality that was mentioned in our texts. I think our books gave us a more vivid image than the movie did. Besides that the movie potrayed the lives of the slaves very well and it also showed their culture and beliefs.
I also thought the film was a good one, other than the first 10 minutes that is. The beginning of the film was odd and made me a little uncomfortable. I saw what direction they were going, it was just a wierd series of shots. Anyway, the rest of the movie was fine. It was hard to watch some of the brutal scenes, especially the whipping of the pregnant women. That made me sick. I can see why the slaves were so eager to run or fight back.
I thought that “Jobe” (the mixed headman) from the movie was a great depiction of the church used for control. In the movie the priest was talking with him and basically telling him he wasn’t like the slaves or savages even though his mother was a slave. A highlight of the movie in my eyes was when the priest got what he had coming to him, when Jobe went crazy and killed him. Shows how much control they really had over the slaves.
I think that the movie did an accurate job as to the lives of the slaves living on the plantation systems. I Thought the movie went into great detail as to how the slave life was different. I thought that maybe the explanation of the name “Sankofa” would of been explained alittle earlier. But besides that the movie was an intense watch, one that will allow me to better understand both the emotional and physical abuses of slaves living on a plantation system.
I thought the movie showed some of the brutality the African people endured during the years of slavery, but I feel that it was probably much worse. I don’t think that the brutality and barbarism was accurately captured in this film. The mutinous spirit of slave I felt was portrayed in a way many other movies fail to capture. I knew slaves revolted, but I didn’t realize that it was part of everyday life. The portrayal of the church also I felt was accurate in showing the duality of church morals.
I agree, I think the movie did an excellent job in portraying the different types of slave labor on a plantation. I also believe that the movie did a wonderful job in portraying how slaves might have felt in regards to religion, atitudes towards different slaves, among other things. This movie did not hold back in portraying the life of the slave, this is perhaps what I liked the most because many times we speak about slavery without any emotional attachment.
I think that the movie did an excellent job in recreating the life of a slave in the Caribbean. I knew that among the slaves there were different stratification’s but i didn’t realize that it went as deeply as it did. Also the film did do a great job in making me better understand the treatment of the different categories of slaves. It also made me better understand the breaking point of a group of people.