Nalo Hopkinson wrote:
>And I don't know if "Daughters of the Dust" fits the definition
of
>speculative fiction, with its pre-born baby ghost girl running
as fast as
>she can to arrive in time to patch a rift between herparents,
but that
>one has a special place in my heart, too <snip>
Yes, Julie Dash's "Daughters of Dust" is breathtaking. Its fantasy
elements and highly stylized photography and dialogue allow the
visible elaboration of the theme of the survival of The Race.
The voice and anxiety of the pre-born baby creates a teleology
spanning generations that reminds me most of Margaret Walker's
_Jubilee_-- which resorts to Providence (i.e., God) for creating
the teleological drive that represents, thematically, the collective
accomplishment of survival (& ultimate defeat of genocide). &
the ghosts of the slaves who drowned resonate with Toni Morrison's
_Beloved_ (which the pre-born baby's voice also calls to mind--
though Morrison's ghostly baby is a dead one, not one anxious
to be conceived & brought to life). In both "Daughters of Dust"
and _Beloved_ the fantasy elements are crucial for articulating
an abstraction it would be otherwise hard to put into words.
As for whether it can be considered "speculative"-- I guess it
depends on whether one is willing to consider novels like _Beloved_
"speculative." "Daughters of Dust" is literary in the way _Beloved_
is literary. People who consider "speculative" a ghetto will
deny they're anything but an art film in the case of Dash's film,
& a high literary novel in the case of _Beloved._
Timmi Duchamp
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:05:58 PDT