Daughters of the Dust

There’s nothing derivative about Dash’s work; every image, every moment is a full creation. Read full review

In the hands of director Julie Dash and photographer Arthur Jafa, this nonlinear film becomes visual poetry, a wedding of imagery and rhythm that connects oral tradition with the music video. It is an astonishing, vivid portrait not only of a time and place, but of an era's spirit. Read full review

"Daughters" has a gorgeous, overwhelming sense of place. It is almost startlingly beautiful, blessed with deep fiery hues and a poetic sensibility. It is a film made stronger by its belief in itself, and it challenges its audience to believe also.... But because "Daughters" is so gloriously textured, its rewards are many. [20 Mar 1992, p.30]

Daughters of the Dust abounds with stunning motifs and tableaux, the iconography seemingly sourced from dreams as much as from history and folklore. But however seductive and trance-inducing, the visual splendor of Dash's film is never vaporous. Read full review

Daughters of the Dust is hypnotic, flowing with the trance-like rhythms of a poem that is beautifully written yet deliberately arcane. It's the cinematic equivalent of the voices you hear in the fiction of Toni Morrison or Alice Walker, but without the connecting narrative thread that most novels possess and most movies imitate. The result is a difficult work, yet a haunting one. [29 May 1992]

Daughters of the Dust is as concerned with grand and universal emotions as it is with its "story." Daughters is an enlightening and sublimely lyrical film. [27 June 1992, p.E5]

This is a work of art that's as much a cinematic probe, and a challenge to mythologizing past eras, as it is an ancestral history lesson. Read full review

A poetic attempt to re-create a bygone culture as not only a role model for the present but also a positive mythology for the future, the movie's strong visual qualities and epic emotions make it a bracing remedy to swallow. Read full review

For all its harsh allusions to slavery and hardship, the film is an extended, wildly lyrical meditation on the power of African cultural iconography and the spiritual resilience of the generations of women who have been its custodians. Read full review

Releasing one's self to the new rhythm of this film can be difficult; the story is allusive, the Island history sketchy, and the precise relationships of the family members undefined. Yet, if her suggestive presentation escapes straightforward analysis, one cannot help but be mesmerized by Dash's unique vision. Read full review

Drawing on their traditions of oral storytelling, it’s lushly photographed and costumed, plus dreamily confusing, yet it vividly brings a past to life. Read full review

Neither slave nor mammy, junkie nor maid, these dawn-of-the-twentieth century African-American women are an unstereotypical breed unto themselves. Read full review

The film doesn't tell a story in any conventional sense. It tells of feelings. At certain moments we are not sure exactly what is being said or signified, but by the end we understand everything that happened - not in an intellectual way, but in an emotional way. Read full review

Throughout the film, cinematographer Arthur Jafa brings in lovely, imaginative photography, showing a remarkable eye for light and composition, while Dash provides crisp, sensitive direction in putting together a moving work about a simple but proud people immersed in a distinct culture and ritual as they try to "touch their own spirits." Read full review

The filmmaker's dreamy style has a quiet strength: The bright, rich cinematography is a treat for the eyes and the hypnotic musical score is lulling. [10 Sept 1992, p.E1]

The narrative can be difficult to follow. But not to worry. The images, the language and the characters can pull you along. [19 June 1992, p.AE22]

Dash deserves great credit for reaching toward a new kind of cinematic structure that blends compassionate character exploration with a deep interest in the world of nature, and a bold willingness to let storytelling take care of itself at its own unhurried pace. One hopes, however, that in future works she will lean more decisively in a single clear direction - toward painterly visualization or toward psychological narrative. [30 Jan 1992, p.12]

Writer/director Julie Dash pours on sounds, music and costuming for a tone more impressionistic than dramatic - and more somnambulant than either. She might have gotten away with it for 80 minutes, but merciless Dust closes in on the two-hour mark, a structural shambles in the too-earnest American Playhouse tradition. [1 April 1992, p.6D]