Legacy, how do we define it, capture it, quantify it? You create a legacy with your actions in life, but for most, how that legacy is read or told, is determined after you are dead, and can be rewritten again and again. A legacy only exists as long as the tale of your deeds are told. Whether in the oral tradition, or the written, or now, in the filmic tradition. Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich’s The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire looks at a woman writer and poet who contributed much to the Afro-surrealism movement during WW2 from Martinique, but after the war, she chose not to publish any more works.
The film itself pushes against the traditional narrative. In fact, you are aware of the apparatus of the film at most times, with many sequences taking place in full view of production vehicles, equipment, etc. You get introduced to the works of Suzanne through various people through impassioned readings. You see both the performers and the performance; you see them playing their roles, and as themselves preparing for their role in a film being made about Suzanne Césaire. This is an interesting take for a documentary and I’m intrigued on whether there is an actual narrative feature as well, or if the actors were only hired to play their roles in this hybrid documentary. I’m not familiar with surrealism outside of overt works like Dali’s, so I could not tell you if this film falls into the surrealist style, but it was certainly avant-garde. In fact, the strictly narrative portions of the film reminded me a little of Lars von Trier’s work in Dogville and Manderlay because the set design was sparse, relying on the audience to fill in the blanks.
The film itself is wrestling with both the legacy of the work Suzanne Césaire made, and why it’s the only work she created. What were the reasons behind her stopping after the war? They know she didn’t stop writing, but that work was never published and has been lost to history so they try to rationalize why she kept that part secret. This is speculation and relies on emotion, interpretation, and the interviews they conducted with family members.
The simple answer, and one that is touched upon in a few different ways by the film is that Suzanne Césaire was a woman in the 1940s and mother of multiple children. She also had a husband, Aimé Césaire, who was also a writer and poet, but after the war entered politics in addition to writing. While it was one thing to co-found “Tropiques” with her husband and publish works in it during the war, afterward, and after he entered politics himself, it isn’t hard to imagine the dynamics changed. Many women, who were treated like equals during the war years, were expected to return to housework after the war. Perhaps Suzanne Césaire was one of them.
But back to legacy. At this moment in time, because there are still people who care about the works she created in life, her legacy lives on and can continue to inspire others, and have ripple effects down the line, so that even if at some point in the future, if her name or poems are no longer remember, their legacy because of the impact they had on others can still live on.
The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire had its World Premiere at the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
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