The voice-over—one of the most overtly “oral” aspects of cinematic enunciation—accrues a particular significance when considered within the context of films originating from historically oral cultures; the presence of voice-over in such films would appear to be the most obvious point of intersection between the modern cultural form of cinema and the ancient tradition of oral performance. Ousmane Sembène’s Borom Sarret (Senegal, 1969) presents a special case in this regard: widely regarded as the first sub-Saharan African film, the film’s use of a first-person voice-over invites comparisons with the voice of the griot, the traditional oral performer in West African cultures.
However, Borom Sarret’s voice-over is exposed as the voice of an unreliable narrator whose bias, shortcomings, and prejudices are emphasized via the unusual relationship of his vocal narration to the other sounds and images in the film. Through this relationship, Borom Sarret constructs and renders visible another narrator that has far more authority than the subject heard in the voice-over. Sarah Kozloff points out that “…behind the voice-over narrator there is another presence that supplements the nominal narrator’s vision, knowledge, and storytelling powers. This presence is the narrating agent of all films (with or without voiceover)” (44). In Borom Sarret, the presence of this cinematic narrator is emphasized, while in classical (Hollywood) cinema it is rendered invisible. It is the god-like third-person cinematic narrator that recalls the autonomous narrator in some African oral performances, the griot. This cinematic narrator, operating behind the protagonist’s voice-over, confides in us, and persuades us to appreciate the ironies and contradictions of the protagonist’s social predicament.