Oct 13 2009
The Truth of Who a Woman Is
Souleymanne Cisse’s “Tell Me Who You Are” had a common opinion amongst viewers on Thursday nights screening in The New York Film Festival. “This lady is insane, how many times is she going to cheat on her husband?” However, she is not insane, she is a true representation of a real woman. Regardless of class, social status, or cultural background, every woman wants to be valued. She wants flowers, candy, attention, and the first place in her husband’s heart.
Mimi, does not receive that love and attention, as many women don’t. In most situations, they do not know how to react or where to receive that attention. Mimi is living proof of that confusion and frustration. As a woman she continues to have desires and her husband clearly does not meet those as she has to consult with a psychic and he provides her with sexual enhancement. When it doesn’t work, she continues to seek it from other places. Of course, Issa would interrogate Mimi about her gentlemen-callers, but she could not question the fact that she had to share her husband. It is such a difficult feeling, imagine sharing a man who should be dedicating his entire life to you.—I wouldn’t know how to react. In the scene where she is devouring a piece of meat, the savageness for me simply made Mimi more real as a character and a woman. What woman does not binge on chocolate, Pillsbury cookies, and chips when she is having marital problems? She just has no way to unleash her confusion and frustration with her marital life and picks random fights as most women do. Her dramatic acting did it all and The New York Times agrees. It may have been off putting and insane for some people every time she breaks out into tears, but for me it strengthened the emphasis of the attention women need and the power/ equality struggles between men and women.
Yes Nathaly, i agree with you that some of the things she did in the movie was just because she was a woman. In fact many times in the play I sympathized with her actions were the result of her desire to have her husband dedicated to only herself. That is something every woman wants. since she could not succeed in achieving this, she directed her frustations and disappointments on her affairs.
Nathaly, I agree she wanted to be treated with flowers, candy, etc…, but also took time to understand the point of view from which this movie was being portrayed.
And, Fabiana, your reference to Nanny Diaries is on the dot (I also watched it and completely agree with the parallelism).
I see where you are coming from when you say that Mimi is not insane. I don’t think she is crazy, either, but I think her actions portray her that way to the audience.
I guess the movie emphasizes the point that many woman want to love and be loved in return.
I agree with you in some sense that yes, women do like to be treated nice and it should be taken to notice that she does try to save her marriage. Maybe because Abba sent her fish and wanted to made an effort to spend time with her, and this makes her be willing to get into trouble just to see with him.
However, I think the movie would be more effective if this point is made more clear.
Its very nice that you mention that about your parents because I think its a problem that many women face. For example, I recently watched The Nanny Diaries and its basically about an upper class woman that does everything just to get attention from her husband since he is always “at work” or in “business trips”. But she divorced him when she realized, thanks to her nanny, that she couldn’t live like that anymore, that if she didn’t get the attention and love a wife deserves it is not worth it.
2 things:
1. There’s an “e” at the end of my name.
2. Issa interrogated Mimi, not Abba.
I personally think that whatever sympathy I had for Mimi’s character was gone after a certain point because of the subpar screenwriting.