In French, the word “de” can mean “from” or “of.” This distinction, along with the ambiguity of the ellipsis, make the original title of Ousmane Sembene’s first feature film, La Noire De… enigmatic. It becomes a question–is Diouana the woman from Senegal, or is she the girl who belongs to her French employers? The film opens with a question as well, Diouna steps off a boat into a new world, and wonders, “Will someone be waiting for me?” a question that echoes in the loneliness she experiences throughout the film. There is someone to meet her at the dock, but he is coldly polite. He does not carry her bag or open the car door for her. She answers him with the same tone, saying no more than “Oui, Monsieur,” to his perfunctory inquiries. Sembene shot the film in 1965, in a short time on a very low budget, but he transformed the constraints of production and used his limitations to beautiful advantage. The film was shot without sound and post-synched, but the dialog between Diouana and her employers is so clipped and minimal that this doesn’t become a problem. She doesn’t have a voice in their presence. They scold her with increasing petulance and ferocity, but she goes silently about her chores. What we get instead is the rich, intelligent voice of her thoughts and her memories. We hear her hopes about starting this new life as a nanny, her anxieties as it becomes obvious she’s not a nanny but a maid of all work, and finally her disappointment and bitterness at being mislead and mistreated. This painful, voiceless isolation is at its worst when she receives a letter from her mother. Neither of them can read or write. Her mother had to hire a letter-writer, and Diouana relies on her employer to read the letter to her. He takes it upon himself to write back, taking down not her words, nothing close to her thoughts, just trite niceties about her situation that he wishes were true. The jarring space between his words and her reality, between her hopeful memories and her present situation, between her articulate imagination and her silent life is so great and dark that she falls into it and can’t find her way back out. The film is beautifully filmed–it is one of the most aesthetically thoughtful black-and-white films that I have ever seen. From Diouana’s graphically patterned hand-me-down dresses to the gleaming white tub and toilet she must scrub, every shot is so full of contrasts of light and shadow that it becomes more than metaphor, it becomes the whole world. This is a movie I want to read. Every image, every shot and movement seems full of shifting significant meaning that I want to notice and understand. I want Diouana to explain it to me. I want to hear her voice.

I love the music in La Noire De…, but I can’t track down the composer. Does anybody know who it is? My search led me to this beautiful song by Sory Kandia Kouyate, called Massane Cissé. So that is your song for today.

I’ve been craving greens like a crazy person! Something about seeing the world turn green all around me, and smelling the fresh sharp sweet smell of the ferns and undergrowth makes me want to cook and eat them! So I make lots of broccoli rabe, which has that bitter-sweet, strong-tender pleasantness. I combined it, here, with crunchy walnuts and tart-sweet pink lady apples. I cooked the apples with the garlic when we ate it, but I think they’d be better fresh and crispy and raw, so that’s how I’m telling you to do it!

1 medium-sized bunch of broccoli rabe, washed and stems removed
1 medium-sized apple, cored and cut into quite small dice (pink lady is nice!)
1 T olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t red pepper flakes
2 t rosemary
1 t sage
1 t balsamic
1 T honey (or to taste)
1 T butter (or to taste–you could leave it out because there is already olive oil in the dish)
1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
salt & plenty of pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the broccoli rabe, and cook for about fifteen minutes till it’s bright green and tender. Drain. When it’s cool enough to handle, chop quite fine.

In a small saucepan, warm the olive oil. Add the rosemary, sage, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Cook till the garlic starts to brown.

Put the warm broccoli rabe in a large flat bowl. Pour over the herb/garlic mixture, the butter, honey and balsamic. Mix well. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the cheddar and apples, and sprinkle the walnuts over the top.