LGM Film Club, Part 548: The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire

Aime Césaire is the most famous Caribbean anti-colonialist. But what of his wife Suzanne. When Vichy took over Martinique, the Césaires and a few others started a resistance magazine. The articles in this are the only things Suzanne published in her life. They were powerful visions of a different future, one where she saw surrealism as an active part of the anti-colonial resistance movement. Then she disappeared into supporting Aime, childreaising, and eventually a divorce. Madeline Hunt-Ehrlich’s 2024 anti-biopic attempts to tell the story of a woman who effectively erased herself from the past, burning her remnant writings. It doesn’t completely work; even at 70 minutes it’s a bit too long. But it’s beautifully shot by Alex Ashe. Zita Hanrot is perfect in the Suzanne role, gorgeous and sultry and brilliant and defiant all at once. It flips back and forth from past to present, from the Césaires to the actors presenting them, sometimes breaking the fourth wall. It might not be a great film, but it’s the kind of film that makes a better world for existing, the kind where art and politics can still exist in non-hackish ways that work to get at hard to find truths.