The 2024 New York Film Festival selection, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, brings viewers into a new cinematic universe with an experimental biopic of an important individual who holds immense power through her scholarly and poetic writings.
One sentence in the film kept me hooked and wondering, ‘Why is that so?’ The sentence somehow became a motto that echoed throughout the film and hasn’t faded away since: “This is about a person who doesn’t want to be remembered.” This strong statement is highlighted with care and dignity in Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s film based on the surrealist writer Suzanne Roussi-Césaire.
Suzanne Césaire was a feminist writer, teacher, and scholar associated with the Négritude movement in the 1930s, giving voice to women and their sufferings through artistic expressions. César-award-winning actress Zita Hanrot plays an actress in a film depicting Suzanne Césaire and learns to recognize her character and writings while reconciling with her own identity and existence. The film, partly based on the essay “Surrealist Refugees in the Tropics” by Terese Svoboda, provides a comprehensive view of how she immerses herself in the character, blending with her inner concerns and personality, seeping into her psyche with a profound impact.
Zita Hanrot’s portrayal is perhaps one of the most artistic depictions captured in cinema. It deals with a dual approach to understanding two different characters and how this interaction shapes Hanrot’s perceptions. The actress grapples with the structure of Suzanne’s movement through her poetic writings, where her perspective redefines feminism. This process pushes the actress into a battle of confusion versus attachment, doubts versus clarity, and thoughts versus solutions. It’s as if Hanrot has donned a massive thinking cap and been projected into a surreal world, described fluently as a poetic possession through artistic engagement in the film. Hanrot’s postpartum condition somehow deepens her connection to Suzanne’s character, adding insights into the unity of two separate worlds into one combined soul—a woman of power.
The aesthetics of the film are extravagantly rich in art and philosophy, drawing us into a meditative world of principles and brilliance. Similar to an Apichatpong Weerasethakul universe, the director creates her own cinematic realm, which doesn’t aim to impress or explain but rather presents an abstract sensuality through human values, standing alone in its experimental showcase.
The film’s relevance to today’s society is even more impressive. Women of this era will realize the impact of Suzanne’s writings in voicing the struggles of those seeking a revolution, which remain relevant and necessary to this day. The underlying themes of capitalism, anti-colonialism, fascism, and the backlash against aristocracy are compared to today’s world, making them both needed and often unnoticed.
This year’s New York Film Festival selection The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire is a bewitchingly beautiful musical film that values and embodies Suzanne Césaire’s legacy through utter artistic brilliance and emotional freedom. Similar to Paz Encina’s portrayal of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode people in the 2022 Tiger Award-winning Eami, female directors like Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich provide us with opportunities to understand intricate concepts of important individuals with unwavering precision, drawing parallels between nature and art—a technique executed exceptionally well.
Somehow, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich’s novel and noble approach transforms the initial haunting sentence into its antonym, shaping Suzanne Césaire into a critically important person who must be remembered in the modern world.
