Criticisms of Saint Omar, immigration, motherhood, and Medea’s acquittal

Despite being over a thousand years old, the story of Medea is still amazing. The foreign woman, who sees herself abandoned by her husband and the society in which she has taken refuge, commits the most terrible act: she kills her two children. Although in his Source Reflecting fear of the feminine and the queer, the myth has been re-evaluated in modernity by several authors. In his latest film, Saint OmarDirector Alice Diop uses it to explore the complexities of motherhood and migration today.

Rama (Kaiji Kagame) is a writer of Senegalese descent who faces a dilemma: she is pregnant, but she is afraid of repeating her mother’s attitudes. In the confusion, he goes to trial to write his next book: The defendant is Lawrence (Goslagi Malanda), a Senegalese immigrant who murdered her 15-month-old daughter and claims she was a victim of witchcraft. He is a monster in everyone’s eyes, but the operation will reveal many unexpected truths.

The inspiration for the story comes from A.J Royal rule At San Omar, which the director attended just as Rama attended in the film. As if it were a Greek tragedy, much of the film consists of simple exposition: the court as stage, the judges and jury as questioning why the woman committed the crime, Rama as the spectator and Lawrence as the defendant who pleads. herself in long, continuous monologues.

Diop avoids monotony thanks to the excellent photographic work of Claire Mathon (“Portrait of a Woman on Fire”, Spencer), who ramps up the tension with uninterrupted shots, and the performance of Malanda, who remains utterly deadpan and imposing throughout the wide confessions, but whose expressions and voice reveal the motives and circumstances that led her to commit such a heinous act.

Diop isn’t exact in his references to Medea (even going so far as to show scenes from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s movie of the same name), but the comparison goes beyond the obvious, both in form and subject matter. As for the technique, for example, in addition to the setting reminiscent of the works of that period, the director herself has it I acknowledge that the choice of music was due to its resemblance to a Greek chorus, an essential element of tragedies.

Thematically, the Medea myth is ideal for contextualising the xenophobia experienced by this woman who traveled from Senegal to France in search of a better future, while the structure allows for an organic revelation: many are amazed at her fluidity. manner of speaking, as if this was a rarity for an undergraduate in philosophy, or questioning her choice to study European rather than African thinkers. Like the woman in the Greek story, this girl leaves her home only to be abandoned by a society ashamed of her existence, which drives her into solitude and then blames her for her madness.

The structure of the script is intriguing, since Rama in a dramatic sense is the protagonist, as she is the one with conflict and whose arc develops from the trial, but her screen time is far less than her reasoning drive; His presence is also less powerful compared to Lawrence’s. Their inclusion, however, is key to talking about how to break the cycle of wounded motherhood, about women whose pain from immigration and the stresses of being a mother is transmitted to their daughters in a vicious cycle that seems to have no end. Rama represents the lost hope of Greek tragedies, a figure capable of leaving the stage and truly learning behind the seemingly ruthless designs of a destiny defined by machismo and hostility to aliens.

“Saint Omer” is a great work whose impact grows even more once the credits roll. He subtly but delicately relates his various topics and offers no easy answers. It is certainly hard to absorb at first, but once it has settled in your mind, it is impossible to let go.

“Saint Omar” is Final To the 2023 Oscar for Best International Film on behalf of France.