Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005)

Directed by: Darnell Martin | 107 minutes | drama | Actors: Halle Berry, Ruben Santiago- Hudson, Michael Ealy, Nicky Micheaux, Lorraine Toussaint, Ruby Dee, Terrence Howard, Gabriel Casseus, Artel Kayàru, Kevin Daniels, Henry Brown, Jensen Atwood, Taji Coleman, Matthew Dickens, Wayne Duvall, Ricky Fante, Veryl Jones, Lisa Lovelace, Sean Nelson, JRStarr, Rhonda Stubbins White, Mark Anthony Williams, Raymond T. Williams, Rhonda Marie Alston, Cyndi Crotts, Khris Gibston, Walter Medina, Flavia Nanko, John O. Nelson

Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s novel of the same name, Their Eyes Were Watching God chronicles the life story of Janie, a young black woman trying to navigate her way through 1930s America. Halle Berry delivers a convincing performance as Janie, a free-spirited woman in search of happiness and true love, but more or less trapped in the conservative environment in which she grew up. For example, when she marries for the first time, she is more or less married off to a much older man whom she does not love in principle, but who can offer her a reasonable materialistic future. Her second marriage to the wealthy Joe Starks seems at first to come from love, but once Joe has worked his way up to mayor of the village of Eatonville, the first free black community in the United States, this turns out to be true in practice. to fall. Although her financial and social position is improving because she is now the wife of the mayor, the relationship between Janie and her new husband is still largely determined by traditional norms and values ​​that dictate that the woman should live her life primarily in the service of the man. set.

Although the life story of Janie is central, the film also tries to paint a picture of what life was like in a black rural community in the southern United States in the 1930s. This was only partially successful. The village of Eatonville certainly looks truthful and the film also manages to express the petit-bourgeois and sometimes narrow morality that often prevails in such small communities. The soundtrack, which mainly consists of old soul and R&B songs, also contributes considerably to the authenticity of the film. It is just a pity that the living situation of the black rural population is being romanticized a bit too much. It gives the impression that Florida, and in particular Eatonville, was a paradise where people passed the time mainly with song and dance. In reality, however, the black farm workers usually had to work incredibly hard for only a meager wage. There is also no trace of racism in the film, a phenomenon that most negroes at that time had to deal with on a daily basis and a theme that is also regularly discussed in the novel by Zora Neale Hurston.

Ironically, Halle Berry’s remarkably good role brings out one of the film’s main weaknesses. Because the story is mainly built around the person of Janie, the other characters lack the depth that the main character does have. They are mainly stereotypical characters that mainly seem to serve to fill the story, but are not too deepened. Another minus is that the viewer doesn’t get too much information about Janie’s childhood. This is unfortunate, because that way a context could have been created that could have further explained the ultimate choices Janie makes in her life.

‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ is a fairly convincing film and a good sketch of the life of Janie Starks that highlights both the highs and the lows. It’s just a shame that the film is actually too short, which means that certain aspects of the original story remain somewhat underexposed. In addition, it is unfortunate that the makers have chosen to avoid certain sensitive topics, in particular racism and poverty, thus somewhat detracting from the historical authenticity of the film.