Writer-director Cheryl Dunye’s debut feature centers on video store clerk-cum-documentarian Cheryl and her obsessive quest to unearth the forgotten contributions of African American women throughout cinematic history. Concentrating on 1930s actress Fae Richards (listed in film credits only as “The Watermelon Woman”), Cheryl conducts interviews with Black film historian Lee Edwards, consults cultural critic Camille Paglia, and sifts through materials at the CLIT Archive in the hopes of unearthing more evidence of Richards' career, long buried by the whitewashing of time.
What could very well read as a synopsis for a personal documentary project is, in fact, a work of fiction, inspired by Jim McBride's parodic David Holzman's Diary (1967) and the actual careers of early Black film stars such as Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers and Josephine Baker. Dunye's documentarian is an inquisitive, vulnerable version of herself cast in a romantic comedy by way of the essay film, à la Chris Marker, to create a self-portrait of one woman's investigation into her own identity.
Emerging from Cheryl's research is not only a clearer picture of Fae Richards' film career but also another, less expected discovery: Richards was known to spend most of her time in the company of filmmaker Martha Page, a white woman nearly analogous to real-life filmmaking pioneer Dorothy Arzner. Running parallel to this revelation is Cheryl's own burgeoning, intimate relationship with Diana (Guinevere Turner), a white, well-off patron of Cheryl's video store, with whom she engages in perhaps the steamiest on-screen sapphic encounter since Rose Troche's Go Fish (1994).
Intent on creating a perennial work that would surpass the magical, democratized moment of mid-'90s prosumer video-making, Dunye imbues The Watermelon Woman, the first feature-length film directed by a Black lesbian, with a crystal clear mission: to tell those stories that have never been told. Borrowing from the buoyant spirit of early Spike Lee and themes explored earlier by Troche, Dunye carves out a unique space for her own distinctive storytelling and fervently independent vision while reclaiming ownership of once-co-opted symbols of h(er) story. —KJ Relth
DCP, color, 90 min. Director: Cheryl Dunye. Production: Dancing Girl. Distribution: First Run Features. Producer: Alexandra Juhasz, Barry Swimar, Cate Wilson. Screenwriter: Cheryl Dunye. Cinematography: Michelle Crenshaw. Editor: Cheryl Dunye. Music: Paul Shapiro. Cast: Cheryl Dunye, Guinevere Turner, Valarie Walker, Emmy Collins.
Preserved as part of the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project from a 16mm interpositive and ½” digital magnetic tape.
