Reassemblage

Reassemblage, film by Trinh T. Minh-ha

Terminology explained with the help of wikipedia and other internet sources:

Joola drums - Kind of confusing. This is a popular Chinese brand of drum. However it may also be the drums of an ethnic group such as the Jola often Catholic and 'Animist', or perhaps the Dyula [aka Dioula, Joola], a Mande ethnic group often Muslim. There are a lot of different ethnic groups out there and I would need a big chart to identify them, and the separations would be contrived since I've never met any [that I was aware of].
Casamance - Area in the South of Senegal, also the name of a river. Lots of rainfall here in contrast to the rest of the country; lots of Tourism and rice. Host to a separatist movement and related violence.
Enampor - A tourist and rice growing village in Casamance.
Andre Manga - A famous musician originally from Cameroon but lived in Paris in the 80s and now in Los Angeles.
Djumalog - I think this might just be a name of a person in the film. Google thought it was a misspelling of 'Dialog.'
Sereer - also Serer, the second largest ethnic group in Senegal, but made up of at least 6 different mutually -unintelligible language speaking groups.
Boucoum - Well, Bocoum is apparently a common last name in Senegal, And the article says it is a village, so we'll leave it at that.
Manding - also Mandinka and Mande, a significant ethnic group in West Africa supposedly descendants of people in the Mali Empire. This was an Islamic state and the rulers were famously generous and wealthy, their fabled wealth made Timbuktu.
Peul - aka Fula, Foulah, Fulfulde, Peulh, and self-identified as Fulbe [Plural] or Pullo [Singular]. The only traditionally nomadic group in West Africa. Defined by language, they speak Pulaar [aka Fulani and all the other ethnic names above]
Bamun, Bassari, Bobo - Different smaller ethnic groups in West Africa more concentrated in other countries than Senegal.
Fulani - See Peul
Sarakhole - Another group of people not mentioned on the internet except in the name of the Sarakhole Boutique in the Senegalphonebook.com.
K-about - I don't know.

Well this is quite the ethnological montage. All about postcolonial /colonial /globalisation... Well, about the actual place that is the other that the West still views as primitive.
A couple of quotes from an interview by Tina Spangler at Emerson College [1993]:

"It is only when I am reduced to being 'either/or' that clear-cut boundaries become very questionable to me."

This summarises my feelings of the pastiche of the film. The text is repetitive and not direct, showing many angles. It shows the arrogance of the colonisers as they, "First create needs, then help." But also the Others are curious and follow the ethnologists, they mention problems of polygamy. It's not a simple relationship. Medicine is provided but is dispensed with religion.

The statement that 20 years makes "2 billion people define themselves as underdeveloped" is incredible. We are reminded by the magnitude and voracity that colonialism is far from over - in its implications anyway, however you define colonialism.

I would be tempted to draw out more meaning since the script reads almost like a poem, each scene full of meaning. However, Minh-ha is very critical of the script and clearly states that the film itself is the more important aspect:

"a very important aspect of my scripts, which is that these scripts were not written before the film was made. They were mostly written during the shooting and during the editing... It is important to keep in mind that the script is no more than a kind of skeleton. It is like a dead skin that the film leaves behind once it is completed."

So, I don't think that I can really conclude too much from just the text. But I do find it overall to be a well balanced way of looking at the situation. There are so many different groups and so many factors, the identity of exploiter/exploited and other binaries just get in the way of understanding.

I'd like to see this film.

Question: Why did Minh-ha pick Senegal of all places? The only connection that I can see is her Vietnamese background which has a similar French colonial influence.