60
[Mr. Sembène's] sadly pensive story of a young Dakar girl hired as a governess for a white couple's three children appears unevenly weighted in favor of Mr. Sembène's dolorous thesis.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
88
Slant Magazine by Eric Henderson
Decolonization in Black Girl isn't only a myth, but also a myth that actually strengthens the consumerist caste systems.
80
Village Voice by Melissa Anderson
Formally spartan, Ousmane Sembène's Black Girl (1966) is dense with cool fury.
100
The Seattle Times by Moira Macdonald
It’s a remarkable personal-is-political drama, set in barely postcolonial Senegal and France.
70
The New Yorker by Richard Brody
Ousmane Sembène, in his first feature film, from 1966—which is also widely considered the first feature made by an African—distills a vast range of historical crises and frustrated ambitions into an intimate, straightforwardly realistic drama.
63
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The weakness of Black Girl is in its slow, journeyman style; one feels that Sembene learned filmmaking by making this film. It also suffers from a kind of primitive naturalism, as if the script were by James T. Farrell out of Theodore Dreiser. Every motive is spelled out in unnecessary detail, and little attempt is made to get into the minds of the characters.