Me Broni Ba (My White Baby)

Akosua Adoma Owusu's short opens with a fly-on-the-wall look at a beauty salon in Kumasi, Ghana, employing black-and-white footage that makes it seem like a relic from the past. Owusu continues to alternate monochromatic scenes with those featuring saturated color stock throughout Me Broni Ba, as stylists cut, straighten, and add extensions to women's hair while radio and TV ads play on the soundtrack (in one, Oprah Winfrey promotes a line of African-American dolls). Owusu also adds an African girl's account of her experience at a Western school; to her eyes, the American girls resemble the white dolls she grew up with at home. As in Chris Rock's Good Hair (VL-3/10), for which Owusu contributed post-production assistance, the focus here is on black hairstyles. In some cases, several people work on one client, particularly when creating hundreds of braids, a lengthy process during which some younger customers fall asleep. Owusu's camera also takes in Ghanaians braiding the tresses of white dolls, and she adds billboards, photographic cut-outs, and evocative music selections to the mix. With no conventional narrative or dialogue, it's up to viewers to decipher whether the director is making a statement about race, gender, vanity, cultural practices, or some combination thereof, since all come into play in this interesting and evocative film. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)