Educational Media Reviews Online

Michelle Mohabeer’s short films, found on the CFMDC Special Edition DVD of her work, range from brief documentary pieces to longer experimental pieces incorporating dance and multi-layered images and non-linear narrative/narration. Mohabeer was born in Guyana and emigrated to Canada and each film on the disc addresses, to varying extents, the themes of exile, identity, race, migration, survival and lesbian feminist lives. In her longest piece Coconut/Cane & Cutlass (1994) she travels back to Guyana to create a film about her own origins, journey of exile and family history in colonial/post-colonial Guyana. It blends documentary-style interview inter cut with interpretive dance, Mohabeer’s recollections and reflections, images of Guyana and narration on the history of Indian and Caribbean slaves/workers on sugar plantations.

With the exception of the shortest film on the disc - Echoes (2003), 3 minutes in length – the collection is of Mohabeer’s films made in the 1990’s. Hence, the Special Edition collection offers excellent examples of a very particular moment in 20th century critical theory. I hesitate to call the films “postmodern” because of the fraught connotations with that term, but the ideas of fluid identity, pastiche, overlap or fracture of time, memory and identity and boundary crossing all figure prominently. They are also all films concerned with hegemony, power, and playing with narrative conventions in a self-conscious way, informed by theory.

Her work is not squarely in either the second or third wave of feminism but in the trough between the two, which makes them excellent candidates for reference and study. Theoretical constructs/stances of importance at that time are taken up in Mohabeer’s films, including post colonialism, standpoint theory and the big three: race/gender/sexuality. Because they are very much an expression of a particular theoretical moment, their appeal to current students or researchers is as texts themselves – artifacts.

I recommend these films for researchers working on feminist theory, and the history of feminism, especially those with an interest in Canada and Canadian political identity or Caribbean/South American identity. These films will also be of use in the upper-level women’s studies classroom, especially courses in feminist theory.

Study Guide

Awards:

• Coconut/Cane & Cutlass, 32nd ANN ARBOR Film Fest , Isabella Liddell Art Award of Excellence, 1994
• CURVE Magazine, San Francisco, Cited as one of the Top Ten Films of 1995
• Child-Play, Zoiefest Internet Film Festival, Best Experimental Film, 2000
• 6th San Juan Cinemafest, Puerto Rico, Innovation in Story-Telling, 1998