User:SMadsenHardy/Black Girl (1966 film)

Reception
A 1969 New York Times review of Black Girl is lukewarm, praising the film's "simplicity, sincerity and subdued anger toward the freed black man's new burdens," but finding it "unevenly weighted" against the white couple, especially the husband, Monsieur, who the reviewer describes as "a gent who is confused but considerate." In a negative 1969 review, Roger Ebert describes the film as "slow and pedestrian." He also complains that "little attempt is made to get into the minds of the characters," particularly the white couple who who employ the title character, Diouana. A 1973 review in The Village Voice calls the film "overly didactic and melodramatic," but recognizes that it offers a valuable African perspective that resonates with audiences in former French colonies.

When critics revisited the film after its restoration in 2016, they found more to praise. In an article on the occasion of Black Girl 's fiftieth anniversary, A. O. Scott of The New York Times praises the film as "at once powerfully of its moment and permanently contemporary," adding that "the force of Mr. Sembène’s art—the sheer beauty that is the most striking feature of his early films—lies in his humanism." In a 2017 essay for the Criterion Collection, Ashley Clark characterizes Black Girl as an "elegantly stark dramatization of postcolonial pain." She notes that the white wife, Madame, would be main character in a Eurocentric version of this story and but that "the focus has shifted entirely" by centering the experience of the immigrant servant, Diouana, who Clark describes as a "refreshingly multidimensional character." Writing for The Guardian, Jordan Hoffman describes Black Girl as "dazzling" and "essential viewing for the well-rounded film lover."