Free topic

Free topic 

Monday 14th November 

This week’s topic was decided since the beginning of the holidays. I went, last Tuesday, to the cinema to watch The Woman King. I think we can say this movie became my whole personality. To explain a little bit what it’s about: it’s a story inspired by real facts. It takes place in Africa in the XVIII century, in the Dahomey empire, inside present-day Benin. It’s the story of the Agojie, an elite troop of soldiers composed of women only, they were known as the most dangerous and ferocious army of Africa. Since it takes place in the XVIII century, there was a lot of slave trade in place already: the different empires were selling their war prisoners to Europeans. And once again, in the XVIII century, no matter where you were on the planet or so, women were always goods to trade with. This army of Agojie was a way for those women to free themselves from their dads, families or else. They had to pass a hard test proving they were strong enough and could support all sorts of pain to be officially part of it. We follow the story of the leader of this army who is like a myth for many people thanks to all she achieved and a young woman who tries to pass the test, adding to this, there is also a conflict between another empire. This movie is said to be a mix of revendication like Black lives matter and #MeToo because it shows the strength of black women during war and battles but also during a time when rapes were something usual (there is a lot (like an enormous) amount of sexual violence and assaults so be careful if it’s a trigger warning). To add to its beauty, the way it was filmed is different and insane. The day before I went to the cinema, I watched a movie from 2004 (which is not really old) but there was only two women who were only there to be beautiful and no diversity of skin colours, in The Woman King, the women are strong, they are fighting and aren’t here just to be only beautiful (even though they all are). The directors chose to film some dances which are insanely gorgeous, and all the music has an African rhythm. They chose to put a lot of meaning behind it, like for example, in a scene we’re seeing a woman running alone and there’s only one voice singing but then we hear more and more voices adding themselves creating a chore while we see many women catching her up making a troop going toward the same goal. To go even further, we can see Africain culture and not them as slaves which is usually the case: they’re strong with a real culture and society and it’s great to discover it. 

I’m sorry for killing the limit of 50 words: even if it’s better if we write a little bit more than 50, it’s too much this week but this movie is really my whole person. 

Five questions about Black Mirror, episode 1 season 2 and the quote of the week 

-->Do you think Black Mirror is better than other series with the same system of individual episodes like Love, Death and Robots (which is a cartoon)?  

-->Do you think technology can help grieving even if it wasn’t the case in the episode? 

-->Do you think a future with a lot of science is necessarily scary? Science could maybe help reduce poverty and help medicine if it’s well developed? 

-->Can science really be functioning alone? To explain a little bit: is it possible for science like mechanism to be completely free from human interventions to for example repair something or to upgrade? 

-->Do you think a future when humans are governed by an alliance between humans and AI? 

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