Stars: Zita Hanrot, Motell Foster, Josué Gutierrez Madeline HuntMadeline Hunt Elrich’s dreamy and languid documentary profiles a woman ‘who didn’t want to be remembered’, the writer, feminist and anti-colonial activist Suzanne Césaire. Césaire was also a leading figure in the Surrealist movement in the Caribbean in the early 20th century. The film is in part an attempt to bring to light her work which was overshadowed at the time by her husband Aime (Foster) Césaire’s five decade-spanning political career in France. Shooting on 16mm Kodak film and with sparse sets and props, Elrich reenacts key moments from the author’s life, including Suzanne and Amie’s meeting with her fellow surrealist André Breton (Guterrez) during World War II. Zita Hanrot plays Suzanne, occasionally breaking the fourth wall to address the audience, or pushing her baby stroller around between takes. Suzanne herself it is revealed, had six children. Cast and crew read from Césaire’s writings throughout. It’s a teasingly elusive experience, but one that elegantly demonstrates the inherent challenges of documenting a life, particularly a historically sidelined one, as well as the invisibility imposed on female artists, even if this is invisibility is partly self-imposed as Césaire chose to destroy her post war writings. Images of sheets of paper fluttering away in the breeze elegantly underline the film’s themes.

David Willoughby

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