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that sound in most villages, and it would go on late into the evening. The day begins and ends with women pounding to prepare the meals. And yes, it is a collective background sound that you'll recognize in villages across Africa.
MacDonald:
At times you can't tell whether what you're hearing is daily labor or music.
Trinh:
More than the music of labor, you also have the body rhythm of collective work. In the film, the way women bodily relate to each other while working is very rhythmic and musical. In other words, daily interactions among the people
are
music. You mentioned earlier the various aspects of the sound track: the silence, the commentary, the environmental sound, vocal and instrumental music. All these elements form the musical dimension of the film, but the relationship between and within the visuals is also rhythmically determined. The way an old woman spins cotton; the way a daughter and her mother move in syncopation while they pound or beat the grain together; the way a group of women chant and dance while plastering the floor of the front court in a house; or the way the different cultures counteract or harmonize with one anotherthese are the everyday rhythms and music of life. In such environments one realizes how much modern society is based on compartmentalizationthe mentality colonialism has spread.
MacDonald:
On the sound track, the statements about Africa are presented in such a way that the deepest voice seems to speak from within the cultures being discussed, the highest voice speaksas you said in the introduction to the text"according to Western logic and mainly quotes Western thinkers," and the medium-range voice (yours) speaks in the first person "and relates personal feelings and observations." But while the speakers vary, their statements often overlap. Were you suggesting that what you hear about any given culture, or within any culture, is a combination of what it says about itself and what it knows is said about it by others?
Trinh:
One can see it that way, certainly. Some viewers have told me, "If you had fictionalized these voices a little bit more (which probably means they want the voices to be more in opposition rather than simply "different"), it would be easier to understand the role of these voices." But I find it informative that a number of people have difficulty hearing the differences between the voices, even though their tonal ranges, their accents, and their discursive modes are so distinct. In the media we consume one, unitary, narrating voice-over. It is not surprising then, that it may take some viewers more than one viewing to hear several voices in their differences. A viewer thought the difficulty comes from the fact that the voices are "disembodied" (meaning that the narrators do not appear on screen), which may be true. But I think there are other factors in-