Sidney Sokhona's Nationality: Immigrant feels in many ways like a natural extension of Med Hondo's masterful Soleil Ô, displaying with a Cinéma vérité formalism the experiences of a Mauritanian immigrant in Paris seeking a better life. Pointed in its critique of the lasting reverberations of colonialism, Nationality: Immigrant extends itself to enunciate the two-pronged nature of the struggle for the immigrant, detailing not only the pervasive forces of nativism, xenophobia or out-right racism but also the suppressive nature of the managerial and/or ruling class, whom creates division among immigrant communities and the larger working class, exploiting and exacerbating the tenuous situation in an effort to maintain their elevated status and means of control. The darker aspects of assimilation are adequately explored, with Sokhona astutely recognizing that assimilation often requires a rejection or denial of one's own cultural identity, leading to acceptance under the larger monolithic culture and the legal apparatus. While largely removed from artifice, intent on providing a naturalist portrait of life for immigrants, Nationality: Immigrant's underlying message is not one rooted in pain but opportunity, as the film demonstrates through the course of its documentary-like narrative the power of communal action. It recognizes the difficulties and is dedicated to exhibiting them with an underlying truth that lacks manipulation, yet the film also ends on a relatively optimistic note in its expression of solidarity, hopeful that the racial and cultural stratas of the working class can unite for the common cause and recognize its social and economic power.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
|