Synopsis
A young girl with a physical disability arrives in Dakar and challenges the convention of boys selling newspapers on the street.
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The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun
Director
Writer
Editor
Cinematography
Composer
Studios
Countries
Primary Language
Spoken Languages
Alternative Titles
卖太阳的小女孩, La pequeña vendedora de sol
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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Netherlands
Releases by Country
Netherlands
01 Feb 1999
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
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approaches neocolonial oppression with decisive universality, in which mambéty's signature anarchy is found to be tempered with unexpected compassion. Sili Laam sings a song that speaks of how allah will reward acts of kindness and charity—literacy did not come to senegal with the colonizers, but was introduced in the ninth century with the arrival of islam along the senegal river. Sili Laam is our leading lady, the most marginal protagonist in the grimmest of social circumstances—her position adhering to mambéty's feminist narrative as well as his decisive deconstruction of the debates about orality and literacy that dominates discussions surrounding the study of african issues and black culture as a whole. this is shockingly relevant even beyond socio-economical critiques, now more…
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Might be the most breezy film Mambéty ever made. Most of all ode to the people of Senegal's streets who give it the color and even more to the children who are its future. He never once comments on one's responsibilities towards them, he simply shows their world and the beauty they posses, the beauty from which it is important to learn. With this, sadly his final film, we can finally learn if we haven't learn before (which I don't believe) that Mambéty belongs to the most humanist of filmmakers who shed his passion for cinema to the images and to the people he showed. His films are definitely the kind that grow slowly and soon without us even noticing, we realize that they are important part of our world. I agree with many who have already claimed that Mambéty belongs to the absolute greatest directors who have ever lived and who is still undervalued. People, see his films!
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“This story is a hymn to the courage of street children.”
The little girl who sold the Sun tells the story of a handicapped poor girl in Dakar who signs up to sell the newspaper Le Soleil in a boy-dominated world to help her grandmother.
With this film, the director lets you bathe in the world of Senegal. Images full of warm colours introduce this film with some shots of people who seem to have an equally warm heart. In the rest of the film, those matching tints in the image continue to follow each other shot after shot, thus creating an atmosphere of a colourful Africa. And not only through colours but also the regular alternation in the composition…
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Poignant, beautifully poetic, and certainly a film that deserves more recognition. An inspiring film that shines light on hope and resilience, Djibril Diop Mambéty’s humane storytelling is a thing of beauty.
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I could watch two full hours of just the scene where Sili dances to the stereo wearing those yellow sunglasses.
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4th Djibril Diop Mambéty (after Badou Boy, Touki Bouki and Hyenas)
A charming ray of sunshine that foregrounds its heroine’s physical disability but never makes it an opportunity for treacly sentimentality. Sili speaks her mind and is taken totally seriously in a fantasy of ideal social relations, a world filled with compassion and the other real worry is jealous boys having their paper route muscled in on. Mambety’s characteristic sense of lively fun (bright colour, a comedy verging on the slapstick) is on full display but it lacks the bite I loved so much in Hyenas, though very few films are as amazing as Hyenas. Sad that this was Mambety’s last work. His poetic coat-of-many-colours visual style was a beauty all its own.
Djibril Diop Mambéty in Order
1. Hyenas
2. The Little Girl Who Sold The Sun
3. Badou Boy
4. Touki Bouki -
The pillars of your forced-scarcity world will crumble and the crippled shall dance in the streets.
I love Djibril Diop Mambéty's storytelling so, so much.
Shoutout to sansho_dayu for leading me to water.
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I wanted a short film to wrap up the day, something quick to watch late at night. So, I sorted my watchlist by runtime and stumbled upon this one. To be honest, I have no idea when, where, or how it ended up there. My watchlist seems to be constantly growing, now over 3,400 films, and this one just caught my eye. A highly rated Senegalese film with only around 4,000 views on Letterboxd? Seemed like it could be an under appreciated gem.
While it didn’t completely blow me away, it’s still a beautiful and inspiring story that deserves to be told. The visuals are great, and even though some aspects of the film in general could’ve been executed better, I don’t think that’s what this is aiming for. I can appreciate that. Overall, it’s a good film with a lot of heart.
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Without exactly occluding poverty, Djibril Diop Mambéty manages to pull off a puff piece. Its short length, use of music, and luminous juvenile lead go a long way towards making this feel somewhat triumphant.
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'This story is a hymn to the courage of street children'
Lissa Balera's performance here should be much more well-known than it is--one of those stories that's exactly as long as it needs to be, a love letter to the director's native Senegal and a potent tribute to the refusal to give up.
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"What shall we do now?"
"We continue!"A fable in the way only Djibril Diop Mambéty could tell.
The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun shows strength and resilience in the form of a determined, young girl adamant to get through life through her own terms and own sense of justice.
Self-reliance and self-determination color this path of capitalistic fulfilment; the little girl in this story has a physical disability that makes her tasks more difficult but on occasion it's sympathy garners her capital gain. This makes the other boys filled with envy and it ironically leads them to exploit her weakness to try and get her down.
But her personality and perseverance also garners her companions.The title of…
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Sili is so relentlessly optimistic and hopeful. It's infectious. And there are so many adorable life affirming shots amid pretty trying circumstances in 20th century Senegal.
I also really dug the percussive high-energy score. Everything feels like it's moving so much faster than it is, and I think in a way that was my easiest entry into the mood of this movie. It captured really well that lightning-under-the-skin energy of being young, trying something new, and picking it up really naturally. Sili seems to find real purpose and pride in her job. It's great to watch a story like that when there are so many sadder (but lazier) stories you go into this expecting to see.
