REVIEW: ‘Saint Omer’ Is an Outstanding Ponderation on Xenophobia and White Privilege

In her award-winning feature film debut, Saint Omer, Alice Diop skillfully uses motherhood and immigration themes to put White France’s treatment of people of color, particularly African immigrants, on trial. It’s an outstanding courtroom drama with echoes of the Euripidean Medea myth.

Inspired by the 2013 real-life case of Fabienne Kabou and the media coverage, Alice Diop takes us to a courtroom in the town of Saint Omer. Here, Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanga), a student of Senegalese origin, is on trial for murdering her 15-month-old daughter by leaving her to drown in the sea. Coly accepts that she murdered her daughter not by her own free will but because of sorcery; she claims she’s been cursed. Meanwhile, sitting in the public gallery is Rama (Kayije Kagame), a successful professor and writer of Senegalese descent who is attending the trial as part of her research process for her next project, a book inspired by the myth of Medea.

Everything about the trial’s procedure seems quite ordinary: we meet Coly’s lawyer (Aurélia Petit), the judge (Valérie Dréville), and the prosecutor (Robert Cantarella), and we see the pompous protocol to start the trial. It’s when Coly starts talking that the ordinary turns into the extraordinary. Showcasing her experience as a documentary filmmaker and even using some transcript from the real trial itself, Diop grabs your full attention and never lets us go.

Should there be any sort of sympathy for Coly? The film is never an apology for her actions. Instead, it provides the context of her life to explore the pressures that white people put on people of color. A verdict that seemed obvious becomes much more complex as Coly explains how she did the unthinkable.

The Madea echoes are soon evident. Just like the mythical figure, it looks like Coly murdered her daughter to take revenge on a husband that abandoned her. She’s also Senegalese-born, thus a foreigner, an outsider (in the Euripidean myth, Medea is often seen as some sort of barbarian). This notion of xenophobia is gradually highlighted by small details in her story and the way the press, people on the witness stand, or even her mother talks about her.

We learn that Coly’s mother forbade her to speak her native language, Wolo, from a young age; she was only allowed to speak French to have a better future. Thus, she became isolated from her community. Later, after years of living in France, she was then labeled as an outsider by her own Senegalese community because of her Parisian accent. This feature is constantly highlighted because every White person in sight seems to be impressed by Coly’s “well-spoken manner and good accent.” 

Diop’s masterful direction creates tension through uninterrupted takes of the courtroom; Malanga’s unpredictable and contained performance makes Coly a hard character to read, thus adding to this tension. With the mood set, Saint Omer keeps the slow-burn approach to reveal how the actions of White people —from a newspaper headline to a controlling partner, or even the legacy of colonization— make people of color feel invisible, or even mad.

There are even more layers in Amrita David, Marie NDiaye, and Diop’s script; Coly is being punished for defying expectations of motherhood in a very radical way. And this, along with the themes of xenophobia and racism (DP Claire Mathon often frames her between a sea of White people to highlight her feelings of isolation and otherness), resonate in Rama, who besides being educated and Black like Coly, is pregnant and has a difficult past with her Senegalese mother. Kayije Kagame’s subtle performance allows Rama’s fears of impending motherhood to become increasingly more evident.

Skillfully using subtlety and observation as its main weapons, Saint Omer plays with taboos and morality to create a nuanced meditation on racism, xenophobia, and colonialism. It’s a film with a clear directorial voice that ultimately offers hope through a soon-to-be mother that decides to challenge the tragic nature of life.

Saint Omer is playing in select theaters now.