Black Girl (1966)
New Yorker Films | Release Date: January 12, 1969 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 7 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
Black Girl gathers a forceful and lasting emotional power. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesMoira Macdonald
It’s a remarkable personal-is-political drama, set in barely postcolonial Senegal and France. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineEric Henderson
Decolonization in Black Girl isn't only a myth, but also a myth that actually strengthens the consumerist caste systems. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMelissa Anderson
Formally spartan, Ousmane Sembène's Black Girl (1966) is dense with cool fury. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard Brody
Ousmane Sembène, in his first feature film, from 1966—which is also widely considered the first feature made by an African—distills a vast range of historical crises and frustrated ambitions into an intimate, straightforwardly realistic drama. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The weakness of Black Girl is in its slow, journeyman style; one feels that Sembene learned filmmaking by making this film. It also suffers from a kind of primitive naturalism, as if the script were by James T. Farrell out of Theodore Dreiser. Every motive is spelled out in unnecessary detail, and little attempt is made to get into the minds of the characters. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA. H. Weiler
[Mr. Sembène's] sadly pensive story of a young Dakar girl hired as a governess for a white couple's three children appears unevenly weighted in favor of Mr. Sembène's dolorous thesis. Read full review
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