Ashes and Embers, the film: a critical review. Issue 2 (2nd July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kai, Nubia
• Is Part Of: Journal of the African Literature Association. Volume 10:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 222
• Page End: 236
• Publication Date: 2016-07-02
• Subjects: African literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; African literature; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 809.896
• DOI: 10.1080/21674736.2016.1257506
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2167-4736

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Ashes and Embers written, produced, and directed by Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima garnered numerous awards and accolades from critics when it first came out in 1982, yet it has rarely been the subject of a critical review. A pioneer of the L.A. Rebellion and proponent of Third Cinema political philosophy, Gerima embodies generations of aesthetic theories and influences from W.E.B. DuBois, Oscar Micheaux, Frantz Fanon, to Fernando Solanas and Ousmane Sembene; and he has forged from this precursory package a unique, experimental cinematic style and the only revolutionary film tradition in the United States. With thousands of returning Vietnam War veterans suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, Gerima found an exemplary character for psychoanalysis in Black Vietnam veteran Ned Charles. Ashes and Embers explores Ned's psychological dislocation and trauma as he wanders from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to the countryside trying to come to grips with his tormented past. This pivotal film with its emphasis on personal and historic memory, semiotic exposition, and nonconventional technique set a theoretical precedent for Gerima's subsequent films Sankofa and Teza . Ashes and Embers is possibly his most complex film and one of the best films on the psychological trauma of a Vietnam War veteran ever produced.