#caribbeancinema : Trip down memory lane with “Siméon” by Euzhan Palcy
We all have at least one film that symbolizes our childhood. Not much can be said about the summary. We forgot the names of the characters. We wouldn't even be able to recognize the actors today BUT we don't forget what these films made us feel. I have four films in this category: “Sissi”, “Home Alone”, “Sugar Cane Alley” and “Siméon”.
I decided to do this review after publishing my “La Squale” review because I wanted to talk about a heartwarming film. I thought about it for a while and then “Simeon” just imposed itself. I must have watched it at least twenty times between my childhood and adolescence in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I had it on VHS because it played at least once a year on RFO (Guadeloupe 1st channel at the time). What a frustration not to find the DVD anywhere! I thought it’d have been commercialized after the preview last year, but it wasn’t. I heard it was available in VOD, but I searched and couldn't find it. I even downloaded iTunes on purpose, but I didn't find it. I found “Sugar Cane Alley” but not “Siméon”.
Let me know if you know where to download it legally. In fact, since I couldn't refresh my memory, I felt like giving up writing this review and then I thought that just talking about it in relation to my memories might be interesting. Keep in mind that I haven't seen this film in at least 20 years, so I won't be able to get into details like I usually do.
Directed by Euzhan Palcy
Official site summary: A village in the West Indies. Musician Simeon is adored by all. Especially by Orélie, a girl whose father, Isidore, dreams of creating universal music. Simeon dies of an accident. Orélie cuts his hair braid: he cannot then die completely and returns to his friends as a warm and laughing ghost. He accompanies Isidore to Paris where he finds a producer and a gorgeous singer. The spirit of Simeon brings together several musicians who form the group Jacaranda.
I don't know why, but the word "village" always rubs me off the wrong way when we use it to talk about a Caribbean town. In my head, the village is the rural place portrayed like French fictions set in the 1940s with the town hall, the church, the communal school, and the post office... and there are like 10 houses ? I say this because that's exactly what makes “Siméon” so precious to me. It's a film with characters who come from a "West Indian village" which shows another side of France.
I have snippets of memories. I remember Siméon in his pink suit. I also remember Pascal Légitimus as villain Philomène Junior with his cigar. I remember Jacob Desvarieux talking with Siméon in the subway hallways where the signs have been replaced by names of towns in Guadeloupe to make it easier for him to find his way around Paris. I can remember very clearly the “Les Abymes” sign. I remember Siméon's braid that Orélie caressed like a talisman and then I think she burns it at the end and she says "goodbye Mr. Siméon". I remember the final concert, I hear the drums in the first scenes... Ultimately, I have very few memories of this film and they’re probably wrong. And I realize now that most of these scenes were chosen for the trailer.
Nevertheless, Orélie was a little girl like I had never seen on television. With Rudy Huxtable (Keshia Knight Pulliam) from the “Cosby Show”, she is my first (only?) memory of a little Black girl on television. At that age, I usually wore braids, two piggytails or a bun. In short, I was one of those little girls who rarely had their natural hair down. The hair routine was: shampoo, conditioner and you combed it right away while it was untangled. When I lived in continental France, I was in an environment where I was the only Black girl. When I went back to Guadeloupe for Christmas or for summer, I stayed with my family and their friends. During summertime, girls would usually have braids so they wouldn’t have to style their hair every day. Hence my fascination when I first saw Orélie. I found her curly natural hair so beautiful that I wanted the same hairstyle. Given my hair texture, I know now I couldn't have such result without using chemicals.
But that’s besides my point. When I think back on it today, Orélie was a revelation to me in such a spiritual way that I wasn't even aware of at the time. I don't think I saw her as a reflection of myself. Matter of fact, I didn't identify with her at all. All things considered, Orélie is to me today what I believe Hermione has been to millions of young readers (even though some people refuse to believe that she could be Black. But never mind). She was just a representation of a child character that I wanted to see because she was an intelligent little girl, full of life, determined, brave, proud... The embodiment of the coolness that a child idealizes. And as a teenager, Orélie would have been even cooler. I'm sure she would have been. Such Black girls could exist in fiction because they exist in real life.
Unfortunately, I can't speak in more details about the direction and the script... But considering the number of times I watched this film in my early youth and the magical memory it left me, I’d say that it doesn't even matter at this point. “Siméon” is one of those timeless films that you can enjoy when you’re 10 as well as when you’re 70. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry by honoring Caribbean culture in all its richness and diversity without making fun of it. It should be one of the Christmas classics in French cinema such as “Le grand chemin” [t/n: “The Big Road”] or “"Le père Noël est une ordure” [t/n: “Santa Claus is Trash”] which national TV channels regularly air in December. Admittedly, the French public can laugh while watching “La Première étoile” [t/n: “First Star”], but it's time for French fiction to also make room for Caribbean culture without it being considered "exotic" (not to say foreign). It's not a question of diversifying, it's a question of including what has already been created to stimulate and inspire people so that future French culture will have more than one “Siméon”.
ndlr : this article was first published myinsaeng.com on March 2nd 2016.