La Petite Vendeuse de Soleil (The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun) 1999
Distributed by California Newsreel, Order Dept., PO Box 2284, South Burlington, VT 05407; 877-811-7495 (toll free)
Producer n/a
Directed by Djibril Diop Mambety
VHS, color, 45 min. In Wolof with English subtitles
College - Adult
Women's Studies, Film Studies
Date Entered: 11/09/2018
Reviewed by Oksana Dykyj, Head, Visual Media Resources, Concordia University, MontrealThis film is a ballad about the courage of the street children of Dakar. It follows a crippled pre-adolescent girl whose resilience, wisdom and sweetness allow her to beat the odds and provide for her blind grandmother.
This is not a story that could now be made in the Unites States as it would either ring false or ironic. But as a Senegalese/Swiss co-production, it offers a welcome universal pureness and humanity that is as infectious as the little girl's sunny disposition and smile. The viewer cannot help but draw on the rhetorical devices present in this film. The sun is ever present in the warmth of the main characters, as well as in the landscape bathed in golds, yellows and oranges and punctuated by splashes of bright primary colors. The camera languorously pans through the parking lots in Dakar, accentuating the stillness of the adjacent slums. It lingers on close-ups of the little girl smiling and laughing as she sells her lucky number of Le Soleil (The Sun) newspapers.
The plot is similar to other films: The little girl must defend herself against jealous bands of newsboys who do not take well to her having sold her entire lot of papers to one rich man after he remembers her grandmother, and then become tormentors. She must talk her way out of being accused of stealing the money she was given by the rich man and pick herself up when she is physically struck down. She perseveres in her self-reliance and emerges victorious. What elevates this plot from other similar ones is that it is not heavy-handed or overly dramatic. It is genuinely uplifting as well as clearly poignant and moving.
It is also not a political film although it can certainly be interpreted as a metaphor for Africa's struggle to survive in a globalized economy. When the little girl finds out that Le Soleil is a government-sponsored newspaper she decides to continue selling it, "so that the government is closer to the people." This is Djibril Diop Mambety's last film, released posthumously. Recommended for Women's Studies, Colonial and Post-Colonial Studies, and Film Studies.