Yeelen (The Light, or Brightness)
1. What do you see as the significant difference/s between Out of Africa and Yeelen, especially in the cinematic representations of the Africa? (5 points)
A major difference between both films is the cinematic representation of the African people. In Out of Africa, African people were represented in a way that they were lesser beings to the white people and solely existed in this film to serve the white people in the film. In a way, Africans in this movie were foreigners in their own homeland. Out of Africa did not represent Africans as a people who stood on their own and were powerless over their land. Yeelen takes a different approach, representing the power struggle within the Diarra family from…show more content… Both movies set in motion that light overcomes darkness. In Star Wars, the force, a good magical entity, is depicted as a light which is pure in nature. The Force is to overcome the Darkside, the polar opposite, which its name suggests represents darkness. Yeelen, directly translates to light or brightness and with the use of the wing of Kore with the crystal set in it, Nianankoro uses light to defeat his father once and for all.
5. In this class we have learned that African cinema uses symbols and mythology as part of the storyline. What do you think the crowing rooster, red dog, albino human, milk and the two round eggs symbolize in the film? (5 points)
In the movie, we can hear the crowing of a rooster. Roosters are known for crowing at sunrise, so the rooster is used to establish a time of day and passage of time in the movie. There is a particular scene in the movie where the father shows his magical ability and conjures an albino and his dog walking in reverse, backwards in time. Albino people or animals are rare oddities that are not commonly seen and I believe that the albino in this seen could represent the odd and the strange of the world, where in a time absent of medical diagnoses, albinos could have raised superstitions. As for the dog, dogs are the most recognizable pets and even in this storyline are a man’s best friend. I believe that the dog could symbolize our companionship and domestication of other animals and therefore shares a
