Daughers of the Dust (?/10)

The background that everyone needs to know before looking at this movie is that the Peazant family is a West African Gullah family living in the secluded Ido Landing. The only way to get on the mainland is via boat. The Gullahs were able to keep their older traditions and were able to retain their spirituality.

The story of Daughters of the Dust is Kafkaesque in that the "action" starts immediately and the story is character driven. The story is also more realistic in terms of where the story begins. It begins with the Peazant family in their own situation. There is no unity and there is no real tangible happiness within the beginning. There is just a feeling that there is something wrong already.

The story begins in three separate directions. We have Nana (Cora Lee Day), the matriarch of the family, who still holds up the old but dying traditions of her heritage. Haagar (Kaycee Moore) is an grumpy character (she yells at people throughout the movie) and wants to leave for the main land as soon as possible. Viola (Cheryl Lynn) is a new Christian who is dissatisfied with her family's situation. She is trying her hardest throughout the movie to change her mother's evil ways and correct her sisters whenever possible. While all this is going on we have Eula (Alva Rogers) who is pregnant (and they make it perfectly clear that she is pregnant by showing her stomach again and again and again) via some white guy that raped her. The problem is that she isn't telling who did it to her husband Eli(). There is also a character called the Unborn Child who appears from time to time walking amongst the people and they don't seem to notice her at all and sometimes she narrates.

The reason why the story is hard to explain and I can only give out the main plot is because the story doesn't follow a linear Hollywood-esque style where there is a plot triangle. The story seems to go in all sorts of places. It is definitely a hard watch but if you can get through it then you might find the style interesting. The only real hard part is if you struggle with accents. There is a certain dialect of English and West African languages that brings the movie to life but at the same time it was hard to hear at times.

I really don't know how to rate this. If I was looking for a pleasure movie I would give this a 1/10 but for analytical purposes and for appreciatory purposes I would give it a ?/10.