In the Ghanaian language, Akan, the term Sankofa means to return to your past and reclaim it. In Haile Gerima’s film, Sankofa, he portrays a story of identity and rediscovery of the past and ancestry through time-travel in which Mona, an African-American model, possesses the body of a house-slave named Shola. Shola’s journey from a compliant house slave to a rebellious enslaved woman permits Mona to relearn her African culture and history and in the end, she emerges with a newfound consciousness of her African roots. Gerima’s, Sankofa, uses unconventional sound images, as well as storytelling techniques such as flashbacks, subplots, and cutting between frames to create an authentic account of slavery and historicize the diverse and complex
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Gerima intentionally invokes the ancestors of the characters so that slavery is historicized through the voices of those who suffered and rebelled against the system of slavery rather than those who were responsible for the infliction of Africans. Consequently, with the purpose of depicting an accurate representation of slavery, Gerima uses the drums of Sankofa and his prose to create a an aspect of mystery that reflects the mystery and fragmented story of slavery that only the “lingering Spirits of the Dead” can give an account …show more content…
Instead, the audience hears the sound of the whip as the camera cuts between closeup shots and long takes of onlookers. One particularly important closeup is the one in which the camera captures Kuta turning her head to look directly at the black head slave, Noble, as he whips her. By focusing on the intense gazes of the enslaved Africans rather than keeping the camera focused on the violence against Kuta, Sankofa’s plot remains centered on the collective experiences of enslaved Africans rather the just the violence against black bodies that dominant images of slavery in western films glorify and exploit. Rather, the account of slavery told by Africans captures not only the pain and suffering endured by Africans, but also their resistance and rebellion against their
Gerima intentionally invokes the ancestors of the characters so that slavery is historicized through the voices of those who suffered and rebelled against the system of slavery rather than those who were responsible for the infliction of Africans. Consequently, with the purpose of depicting an accurate representation of slavery, Gerima uses the drums of Sankofa and his prose to create a an aspect of mystery that reflects the mystery and fragmented story of slavery that only the “lingering Spirits of the Dead” can give an account …show more content…
Instead, the audience hears the sound of the whip as the camera cuts between closeup shots and long takes of onlookers. One particularly important closeup is the one in which the camera captures Kuta turning her head to look directly at the black head slave, Noble, as he whips her. By focusing on the intense gazes of the enslaved Africans rather than keeping the camera focused on the violence against Kuta, Sankofa’s plot remains centered on the collective experiences of enslaved Africans rather the just the violence against black bodies that dominant images of slavery in western films glorify and exploit. Rather, the account of slavery told by Africans captures not only the pain and suffering endured by Africans, but also their resistance and rebellion against their