mizkwebb-1 I'll start by saying that I usually like non-linear movies, and that I'm interested in African-American history and the Gullah people. That said, this movie was one of the all-time worst I have ever seen. There's no plot, no character development, and no way to determine what the relationships between most of the characters are. It's as if you were dropped from the sky into the midst of this somewhat unsympathetic bunch of women (the men are ciphers, no personalities at all, merely an afterthought), and during the time you are there they don't speak to you and reveal nothing about themselves. The Gullah dialect is almost impossible to understand, and there are no subtitles. Yeah, the cinematography is nice, but save yourself a couple bucks and watch a PBS show. It's obvious that the ONLY reason many people are so entranced by this film is that it was the first independent film by an African-American woman.

bigrichry I am taken with stories of the undeveloped and developing peoples and would have liked to learn of the Gullah culture. I did my best to follow this mishmash for 45 minutes. It seems to have several dialects that would be impossible to close caption and completely unintelligible as it is. Only a rare person would get anything from it.It appears to start with a black preacher and his wife appearing on the scene where a black woman hidden behind a fluffy white object is approaching accompanied by an attractive light-skinned woman. As the lighting changes, some of the characters appear to shift from Caucasian to Negroid. I have no idea of what happened while I attempted to watch with my wife who has very good hearing and diction and could make no sense of it either.I didn't attempt to watch the last half.

abby-lorts Besides being visually gorgeous to look at, I am having trouble finding positive things to say about Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust. My biggest problem with understanding Daughters of the Dust was the continuity. Obviously there was no change of costume, there was only the one meal, and no one ever seemed to have slept, so this would make me think that it all takes place in one day. However, because of the poor continuity in editing, when the film was over I really found myself guessing what was going on. It must have been difficult shooting where they did, St. Helena Island, and with a smaller budget, but the frequent change of sunlight really threw me off. I'm not just talking about the storm scenes, but towards the end of the film it seems like they had trouble with clouds moving in and out. It also seemed like some of the last shots were edited together without paying much attention to the lighting changes. Also, along with continuity editing, characters disappeared and reappeared extremely infrequently. For example, the American Indian that was seeing Iona just took off towards the beginning of the film, and we don't see him again until the last few minutes of the film. He was obviously not a main character of the film, but are we really supposed to feel something when Iona runs off with someone we have little/no feeling for? It wasn't just this side story that we were given little insight into, but all characters. Instead of letting us deep inside of fewer characters and their lives, we were exposed to several characters, and we were given very little insight into who they were. This kept the film very shallow and somewhat meaningless for me. I couldn't find any sort of central plot. There were several little sub plots, that didn't go very far, and all ended with the splitting of the family into those who stayed on the island and those who went to the mainland. And then we're cut off. All we know is they never see each other again. So, we're given little to no plot, no deep or meaningful insight into the characters, and a rather abrupt and unsatisfying ending. I'd argue that Daughters of the Dust is a poetic film before ever calling it a narrative. The film had a poetic feel to it, with the beautiful scenery, the language used, and especially the music. That (horrible) harp music that was constantly repeated over and over again could be interpreted as poetic. However, the African tribal music that was used was also very poetic sounding, exotic and rhythmically speaking.

jason-harre Turning the Page for African-American FilmsThe mid nineteen eighties and early nineties were chock-full of films displaying discriminating evidence against the African-American community. Films such as Boyz in the Hood, Menace to Society, and Friday demonstrated a stereotypical theme of gangbanging hoodlums that settled into the minds of the nation. If films representing the African-American man weren't incriminating enough, the alternative option was misrepresentation through the music industry. Milli Vanilli, once proven unauthentic, made an embarrassing impression that is still humored on late night television. MC Hammer, LL Cool J and other music artists help to upturn the music industry with their ability to direct trends for urban culture. Artists fresh new styles were a simple antidote for one industry. However, the film industry was still rendered and in search of its hero. The hero finally came in Julie Dash's Daughter's of the Dust in 1991. A deeper search than black baggy pants had to come along for an impact to be felt. The deeper search led Julie Dash into African-American history and a peasant family from a subculture known as Gullah. Dash's poetic portrayal relieved the nation's minds of problems in the black community by celebrating its past. While the film was still very dramatic, it was able to capture the audience with its breathtaking scenes. Most famous of which was the picnic scene that the family found itself in a debate of traditional and modern ways.This film had its twist and turns but made a lasting impression with its individuality from other films. The characters all had climatic problems, but were portrayed as free and independent from the hardships that are faced by poor urban society today. This made for a break in the downward trend of a current representation of the black community. Jokingly, this film should be more highly regarded than even MC Hammer's legendary baggy pants.