Reassemblage: From the Firelight to the Screen, Trinh T. Minh-ha, USA, 1982, 40’, 16mm.
Trinh T. Minh-ha invites us to listen with the eyes and to see with the ears. This time, in Senegal. A film about Senegal. But, what is Senegal exactly? Reassemblage is a film about the people of Senegal and, in the same time, a reflection about cinema, a questioning of the conventional Ethnographic cinema. The director uses different cinematographic tools to make visible the mechanisms of manipulation of cinema like, for example, the relationship between the music and what music makes feel the audience.
Asking herself about her documentary gaze in a small village of Senegal Trinh T. Minh-ha says: “Looking at her through the lense. I see her becoming me, becoming mine. Getting in the unique reality of signs, where I’m a sign as well”.
Reassemblage was filmed in Senegal. It is considered as one of the most etnographical works by Trinh T. Minh-ha.