Daughters Of The Dust

In 1902, two members of the Peazant family, straitlaced Viola (Cheryl Lynn Bruce) and worldly Yellow Mary (Barbara O) make the crossing to one of South Carolina's Sea Islands to pick up the rest of the family and escort them in a move to the North. Trula (Trula Hoosier), Mary's soulmate, accompanies them and the thoroughly modern Mr. Snead (Tommy Hicks) goes along to document the excursion. But they arrive to find the rest of the family conflicted over leaving. Eli (Adisa Anderson) is trying to convince the Peazant matriarch, stubborn, old Nana (Cora Lee Day) that leaving means progress for the whole family. Eli is also struggling with his young wife Eula (Alva Rodgers) because she's carrying another man's baby--the unborn narrator of the day's events.

Haagar (Kaycee Moore) and the other women of her generation are frustrated with Nana and her ties to the past and the Island, but Hagaar's daughter, Iona (Bahni Turpin) wants to remain behind with her Cherokee boyfriend, St. Julen Lastchild (M. Cochise Anderson). Citified Viola and Yellow Mary are at first put off by the backwater habits of their family, but they begin to enjoy reacquainting themselves. Mary and Trula stroll on the beach with Eula. Viola gives all the teenage girls an etiquette lesson. In the afternoon, the family gathers on the beach to indulge in a luscious picnic of gumbo, corn bread, rice, shrimp and crab.

After the meal, the Peazant women air their old grievances, attacking Yellow Mary for her questionable morals and Nana for her attachment to the ways of their African ancestors. A passionate outburst by Eula breaks them down and brings them together, and they all walk into the woods to receive a blessing from Nana. She stands in front of an arch formed by the curve in a great, fallen tree, and literally entwines animism and Christianity, asking her relatives to kiss a bible tied with a charm, to bide her family on their way North.

Yellow Mary and Eula decide to remain on the Island with Nana--they are her spiritual heirs. The rest of the family boards a rickety, wooden boat headed North, save Iona who pulls away at the last minute and rushes to St. Julen Lastchild.

In her poetic feature debut, independent filmmaker Julie Dash abandons traditional narrative forms in order to create a new way of looking at the lives of these African-American women. She presents their day as a collage of images: snippets of arguments and confessions; blued hands wringing cloth in vats of indigo dye; girls dancing on the beach; cabin walls decorated with flamboyant drawings; and always quilts, the symbol of the beauty and internal coherence underlying their varied experiences.

Through this impressionistic style Dash, who reportedly spent thirteen years getting DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST off the ground, is able to investigate the basic theme of generations struggling for and against progress and also to present a volume of information about each character individually, the gorgeous and isolated physical setting, the daily customs that reveal the link between African and Sea Island culture--all details that inform the severity of the family's conflict.

Grounding DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST are forceful performances from all of the Peazant women, especially Cora Lee Davis, Barbara O and Alva Rodgers. These three actresses are utterly unselfconscious emotionally. The direction of the other characters is at times inconsistent, moments of theatricality disrupting the more open, natural style of most of the film.

Releasing one's self to the new rhythm of this film can be difficult; the story is allusive, the Island history sketchy, and the precise relationships of the family members undefined. Yet, if her suggestive presentation escapes straightforward analysis, one cannot help but be mesmerized by Dash's unique vision. (Adult situations.) leave a comment