Sophia Fugazzotto
ECL 305
Dr. Pressman
April 13th, 2024
Hybrid Stories of the Sea
The 2018 film The Water Will Carry Us Home by Gabrielle Tesfaye tells a story of the Middle Passage and the horrors that Africans faced on this journey. During this film, pregnant African women are thrown off of the ship, but instead of falling to a tragic fate, they are saved by the presence of Yoruba Orishas, and turn into mermaids. Using art as a medium to recount an appalling part of history allows us to see the past through a new lens, instead of just the one we have been taught. To tell this story, Tesfaye uses two different formats of film–modern film making and stop motion animation. This is one of many hybrid elements used in this film. The use of hybridity in The Water Will Carry Us Home connects past and present, by revealing the harrowing journey of the Middle Passage and the people who are connected to it. It is this type of creative storytelling that allows audiences to see that history is not just stories; it is lives that were lived by people, just like us.
One important element of hybridity in The Water Will Carry Us Home is the use of both modern film making and stop motion animation. The film begins with modern film making, with many shots focused on small details of Tesfaye and what she is doing–such as the henna on her hands, the stretched ear lobes, the tattoos, the smoke from the candles. These small details slow down the film and force the viewer to pay attention to these details, rather than a complex scene. For instance, consider the close shot of the eye henna on her hands, which is later also seen on the boat in the stop animation portion of the film. Had the shots had been wider and not focused on these details, the viewer may have missed the eye on the woman’s hand. This symbol being in both parts connects these two mediums, and connects past and present. In addition, by having modern film making sandwiching the stop animation, it first allows the viewer to relate to something in the beginning (this looks familiar) and then brings the viewer back to reality at the end (this is part of someone’s culture, this is a story told by these people). With this personal touch, the viewer is able to see that this story is not just a tale for the history books, but it is deeply connected to a culture and a people.
Another element of hybridity is the stop motion aspect. There are two important parts of this format that contribute to the structure and story of this film. The first is, quite simply, the choice to use stop motion animation. Stop motion is the process of taking multiple pictures of the same items, and moving them slightly between each shot, and then combining the photographs to create a moving picture. It is the basis of film, but is not commonly used now due to how time consuming it is. The stop motion portion of this film takes only four minutes; yet Tesfaye most likely spent weeks, if not months, creating these scenes. The quick consumption of this media can be compared to our similarly quick consumption of the Middle Passage in history. The Middle Passage was a harrowing journey that lasted around eighty days on crowded slave ships (“The Middle Passage”). Yet, we do not even spend half of that time discussing the Middle Passage and the horrors that were imposed on the enslaved people on these ships. This creative choice by Tesfaye is important commentary on our consumption of history.
The second significant feature of the stop motion animation is the hybridity within this format. Tesfaye creates most of the stop motion artwork from paper and watercolor, but she also adds historically famous images of the slave ships. Specifically, the ‘Brooks’ diagram, which was a document created in 1788 to visualize the most effective way to pack slaves onto a ship (“The Slave Ship”). The use of these images within the stop motion changes the visualization of this slave ship–it goes from just drawings to showing the viewer that this was a significant, and painful part of history. Tesfaye could have drawn these cramped conditions herself, but her choice not to brings the viewer back to the reality of what happened to these slaves, and how their placement on the ship was carefully planned, as if they were simply inanimate objects being stacked on a cargo ship. This adds to her creation of a story that is not just part of history, but the lives of real people.
A final element of hybridity in The Water Will Carry Us Home is the headphones used at the end, which can be interpreted as a way of listening to the ocean and the stories it holds under its surface–stories we may never learn or know of. When one listens to the inside of certain shells, one can hear a sound similar to waves, but it is actually the vibrations of air due to the shape of the shell. What if this is the ocean’s way of recording what it sees? By shaping the shells in a special structure, the sea is able to save its memories, a history that may be locked away forever. These headphones also represent the intertwined lives of humans and nature; they are constructed of sea shells from nature and metal from humans. This use of materials reveals both the ability of human and nature to coexist, but also the power that humans retain over nature through their ability to manipulate it to their benefit, same as slave traders used the ocean for their own benefit.
These hybrid elements of Tesfaye’s work create a film that does not follow traditional routes, but instead combines powerful features to forge an emotional experience for the viewer. It reminds us of the stories behind the brief chapters in our history textbooks, and the cultural stories from the side of the oppressed. Creative forms of art allow us to see history from a new perspective–instead of pages of words, we are allowed a more emotional and interpretive representation of history that is not controlled by those who ‘won’. The Water Will Carry Us Home bridges the gap between historical events and modern film by use of hybrid storytelling from a fresh perspective.
Works Cited
Tesfaye, Gabrielle. “The Water Will Carry Us Home.” Vimeo, 10 May 2018, vimeo.com/269045173.
“The Middle Passage (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/articles/the-middle-passage.htm#:~:text=The%20Middle%20Passage%20itself%20lasted,15%25%20grew%20sick%20and%20died. Accessed 13 Apr. 2024.
“The Slave Ship ‘Brooks’: Royal Museums Greenwich.” The Slave Ship “Brooks” | Royal Museums Greenwich, www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-254938#:~:text=In%201788%2C%20abolitionists%20in%20Britain,around%20the%20country%20and%20abroad. Accessed 13 Apr. 2024.