"Zombification is living under someone’s thumb."
Written by Andie Kaiser
Maya Annik Bedward’s Black Zombie is my favourite watch from the festival, and a wonderfully executed exploration of the zombie as a cultural figure. The film traces its longstanding connections to Haitian Vodou, a religion that has continually been misrepresented and villainized throughout film and general history. By looking critically at a variety of the most well-known and influential “zombie movies” in Hollywood history, we learn how this figure has been stripped of its roots in Haiti, where the zombie was very much connected to slavery and the idea of one’s agency being completely taken away. What Hollywood does, however, is take this figure and use it for its own colonial purposes, creating a racist trope that has ultimately led to the kinds of zombies we see in film today.
It’s a film that, while tackling many large ideas and spanning across hundreds of years of history, never presents information in a way that feels crammed. It naturally brings in topics, historical movements, and interviews with current film and zombie scholars, as well as Haitians who practice Vodou. Overall, this creates a richly crafted and fascinating look at something we’re all familiar with, but likely have been misunderstanding for a long time. As French and African Studies Professor Kaiama L. Glover says in the film, "it can’t be really underestimated the ways in which culture can do the work of statecraft."
Black Zombie had its world premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival, and its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs, with future screenings to be announced.
Comments
Post a Comment