NYFF Review: The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire is a Bold Rethinking of Black Surrealism 

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire, the feature debut from artist and filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, aims to foreground its primary literary material and historical context, but instead directs more attention to its oneiric touches and environmental phenomena––the “wind in the trees,” so to speak. The title figure, together with her more widely known husband Aimé Césaire, were both at the forefront of the négritude movement, which sought to put Francophone literature by colonized peoples in greater dialogue with their African ancestry, and to depict this with a supple, surrealistic view of the world. Assembled from deep research, assistance from academic specialists, and consultations with the Césaire offspring, Hunt-Ehrlich’s bold formal schema still prevents us from fully absorbing these efforts: “feeling” does outpace our full understanding. The vibrant Caribbean music and torch songs on the soundtrack make plain it’s a ballad, not a pedagogic Lecture of Suzanne Césaire. 

Following this century’s broader circulation of anti-colonialist thinker Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire––a mentor of his––is now better-known in English-speaking circles, yet viewers not fluent in French might struggle to gauge the urgency of Hunt-Ehrlich’s call for Suzanne’s writing to have greater prominence, with it read onscreen and in voiceover by the film’s principal characters. It proceeds in two narrative threads: dramatizations of episodes from the Césaires’ lives in Martinique when it was under Vichy occupation throughout WW2, and self-reflexive, observational shots of the locale (with South Florida doubling for the Caribbean) in which Hunt-Ehrlich and her cast (César winner Zita Hanrot here incarnates Suzanne) enjoy some downtime, read from the texts, and nurture their young children who’ve accompanied them to set––all of which convey the chasm between the less-pressurized “present-day” and the historical moment they’re bringing back to life. 

Whilst the words are beautifully read and the dialogue consummately performed by Hanrot, Motell Gyn Foster (Aimé), and Josué Gutierrez (confusing playing their associate André Breton, given the actor’s Latin heritage), the dreamy fluidity of the structure and natural, sound-laden master shots teasingly prevent us from ascribing a more concrete meaning, even purpose to what we see. Investigating surrealism as a literary mode, rather than pictorial, is one issue––how French language is manipulated––can’t be noticed as well by the English ear, but Alex Ashe’s 16mm cinematography for the period and nocturnal scenes help us grasp the tropical climate as a cauldron for the movement: the lush and eclectic vegetation, and unstable weather events (e.g. storms and volcanic eruptions) are evoked in a late sequence with very non-linear, destabilizing cutting. Here the shivering tension inherent in these images feel more convincingly surreal than anything Suzanne is hinting in her language. 

Assessing contemporary world literature as a whole, it seems to have shed its obsession with Great Men: the most prominent authors celebrated by the literary establishment are now women, with intersectional categories like race, ethnicity, and nationality further dominating what we read. And this sense of balance has filtered down into historical literary studies, encouraging us to rethink the reputations of male figures of literary genius. In a writing couple like the two Césaires, can an argument be made for co-authorship and mutual influence on works under their own name, especially as Aimé has more renown than his spouse when taking credit for négritude? This was a principle of Frederick Wiseman’s similarly short, Straub-Huillet-evoking A Couple from 2022––the acknowledgment of what vital background we leave out of the story when focusing on the most canonical work. Yet overall, The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire shows us how this discourse falls away––or most essential points are refined––when elaborated upon by such voluptuous cinematic form.

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire screened at the 2024 New York Film Festival.

Grade: B