Postcolonial Amnesia: The "Vanishing Present" of the Past in Le Cercle des noyés

Abstract

Le Cercle des noyés/Drowned in Oblivion (BE, 2007) is the third feature on Mauritanian society and culture by Belgian documentarist Pierre-Yves Vandeweerd.1 The film enjoys a wide circulation on the festival circuit and on lowprofile, “underexposed” grassroots networks of film circulation.2 After earning many accolades and drawing a flurry of critical hosannas,3 it is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. The end result of a decade-long research in Belgium, among Mauritanian expatriates and political refugees, and in Mauritania, Drowned in Oblivion stands as a powerful poetic evocation of the plight of members of the Black minority who were arrested, tortured and sentenced to four years of detention in faraway Oualata for their alleged involvement with FLAM (Forces de Libération Africaines de Mauritanie), a militant organization founded in 1985 to advocate for the political rights of Black Mauritanians.4 In the “Liner Notes” to the DVD set, Birgit Kohler provides a concise summary of the film: