Elza Film

    Similar to 'Moko Jumbie' and "To Da-Duh, in Memoriam," this film followed a girl's journey home back to the Caribbean, in this case to the island of Guadeloupe. This story also has the common theme between the three of family, but the issues in this story seem much different than the previous two. Right from the beginning of the film, we see our protagonist, a first generation college student who has just earned her Master's tell her mother she is returning home from Paris to the Caribbean to look for her father. We see just how upset the mother was, which was interesting to see. It made me wonder if people that got off these islands and realized what else the world had to offer never wanted to go back. Still, there are people like Elza that had an emptiness inside of them that they needed to return home to find.
    When she gets home, Elza becomes a babysitter for her father's granddaughter in what is quite an interesting family dynamic, though the others do not realize who she is and she uses an alias. This film gives us a look into several interesting aspects of Caribbean culture. One of these is male dominance and the power they try to exert on women. At one point, after already being inappropriate with her on several occasions, her father's new son-in-law tells Elza, "Don't forget you owe be something." It was quite absurd to see her be told something like this after she was the one who had suffered from his inappropriate actions. There was a lot of sexualization in the film, even in the affairs and consensual relationships. It was nice to see towards the end of the film when the new wife had found of her husband's affairs saying, "Do you have a good time with all those bitches?" and taking some power back, something I imagine is rare and often times hard to do.
    Music was also a huge aspect of Caribbean culture explored in this film, with seemingly some type of music playing throughout the entirety of the story at different times. There was also something deeper and criminal going on with Elza's father I believe after seeing his 'workers' hold Elza and the little girl hostage. We have watched and read about some of the crime on the islands, so I would be interested to see what the deal was there.
-cs 

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