THE STORY – An actress reads through fragments of Suzanne Césaire’s archive while preparing to perform excerpts of the writer’s work.
THE CAST – Zita Hanrot, Motell Foster, Josué Gutierrez, Reese Antoinette, & Melisa Lopez
THE TEAM – Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich (Director/Writer) & Marina Magloire (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 75 Minutes
What is it to make a “film of an artist who didn’t want to be remembered,” someone whose work is so influential to those who’ve read it while being unknown to many? That’s the enigma of French writer and activist Suzanne Césaire. Césaire’s literary work may have only been seven essays. However, her writing is considered an essential surrealist text exploring the impacts of anti-colonialism that is still prevalent all these years later. Why Césaire stopped writing remains a mystery to many, as she never explained what made her want to stop something she was so gifted at. Was it the ordeal of raising six children? Was it always having to put her creative identity in the shadow of her husband’s (politician and writer Aimé Césaire) work? Whatever it was, it feels like Suzanne became an often ignored footnote in literature, even if self-inflicted. Césaire’s work impacted artists like filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, whose latest feature, “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire,” aims to spotlight one who never asked for it.
With “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire,” Hunt-Ehrlich has, in a way, crafted the anti-biopic. It’s a film that essentially feels like an anesthetic to the redundant formula the medium has become when depicting real-life figures. Hunt-Ehrlich’s approach is almost that of a visual poem, following a film set, with two actors (played by Zits Hanrot and Motell Foster) playing the roles of Suzanne and Aimé Césaire. These two performers are caught in the artistic weeds, navigating such heady material that essentially bakes into their perceptions of how they interpret the world. Even though Hanrot’s character is the most prominent in the film, everyone in the cast is a figure piece for aspects that constitute Césaire’s life. Few actors appear, but they harmoniously strive for an artistic and internal balance that bleeds into these characters. Audiences watch as these actors monologue Césaire’s written works to paint the recreations of certain moments they feel encapsulated who the artist truly was. We see how desires are subdued, as nothing is ever outright expressed.
Hunt-Ehrlich and Marina Magloire’s screenplay is intriguing because, at times, we’re just watching performers read to the camera the essays of Césaire. There’s a sequence where Hanrot’s character leaves pages behind for what’s assumed to be a production assistant to fill audiences in on more of Césaire’s life that most people who are watching don’t know about. This can sometimes feel redundant, especially when it breaks the film’s seamless blending of its dreamlike haziness, which could lead to viewers being somewhat lost in translation. Hunt-Ehrlich’s lens as an artist lends a unique commentary on what artists bring to a project. How can one paint a perfect representation of someone whose life we don’t know much about? It’s interesting to see where the real-life figure begins and where the character comes into play.
The intentional haziness mentioned earlier makes “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire” spellbinding. Overall, the film isn’t concerned with hitting the spark notes from cradle to grave and instead is more concerned with capturing the essence that made her work so timely. Alex Ashe’s cinematography is sumptuous and gorgeously shot on 16mm film. She warmly captures the intoxicating environment in which actors spend their days filming the project and conversing about the constitutions of their characters. The sounds of cicadas and water gently running, along with the stunning natural greenery in the background, all help put viewers into the mindset these performers are so desperately trying to dial in on. Hunt-Ehrlich’s methodical pacing helps establish the atmosphere that envelops audiences, but it could test the patience of many for a relatively short feature.
The film loses some of its mystique, as there is a certain amount of legwork that needs to be done in explaining Césaire’s life to a degree that leads to the occasional sequence of reading her life’s bio shedding off some of the nuances that make this film so alluring. After “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire” ends, most will be left thinking more about Césaire. Questions relating to the project these characters are creating won’t have been answered, but that’s not the film’s purpose. What Hunt-Ehrlich leaves viewers with following this brief, 75-minute feature is how the fragments of an artist’s work do not always put together the picture of the person as they are. We get an idea of someone who dreamed, someone who loved, and someone who probably aspired for more. There’s only one way to know the type of artist Césaire is, and that’s by diving into the work itself. However, “The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire” makes a pretty good starting point in that journey.
