“There is an intriguing film at the core of Dear Ancestor, but it only fully emerges in the moments that rely on archival footage and abandon the fairytale framework”

In many ways, Dear Ancestor is a hybrid film that draws on both fairytale and documentary narrative structures. As it attempts to highlight the systematic plundering of Madagascar’s natural resources while arguing that contemporary environmental crimes and exploitation are, in fact, a continuation of the island’s colonial past. At its core, Nantenaina Lova’s film suggests that the past is never truly behind us; rather, it continues to shape the present, leaving us as little more than sailors carried along in its wake. To convey this idea, the film begins in a fictionalized 2067, where a mother tells her daughter the story of resistance movements in the northern regions of the Great Red Island. 

From this imagined 120th anniversary of an anticolonial uprising, the narrative moves backward in time: first to a very idealized era in which humans lived in harmony with nature, and then to Madagascar’s current political turmoil surrounding the exploitation of its natural resources. Through this structure, the film weaves a chronological thread that underscores the importance of understanding the past. In order to ultimately inviting viewers to reflect on the notion that we are not truly “postcolonial,” and that any meaningful resistance must be rooted in the historical context of colonial struggle.

However, the attempt to connect past and present to an imagined future becomes the film’s central weakness. Despite its hybrid form and ambitious temporal scope, Dear Ancestor often feels overly didactic. Because the story is framed as a tale told to a child, or someone not yet equipped to grasp the complexity of these issues, the film frequently oversimplifies its subject. At times, it seems as though Lova views the audience in a similar reductive way. Moral distinctions are drawn too clearly, echoing the binaries of children’s literature, where good and evil are sharply opposed and ambiguity is absent.

This approach proves particularly limiting given the gravity of the film’s subject. The most compelling sequences, such as those depicting women activists challenging the narrative that environmental advocacy is incompatible with national progress, are never fully developed. This is especially disappointing in a film so invested in the act of storytelling. The same issue arises when the film touches on Madagascar’s presidential elections or the arrest of environmental activists, both of which are treated too superficially.

When all is said and done, there is an intriguing film at the core of Dear Ancestor, but it only fully emerges in the moments that rely on archival footage and abandon the fairytale framework. Moreover, by reducing real-life political struggles to a cautionary tale, the film risks stripping Malagasy activists and citizens of their complexity. They are portrayed as inherently virtuous and in harmony with nature, in contrast to urban populations or foreigners, who are depicted as disconnected from the environment.

In this respect, the work of Raymond Williams, particularly his seminal book The Country and the City, comes to mind. Williams warns against romanticizing rural life and constructing an imagined, harmonious past, noting how such narratives obscure the realities of hardship and exploitation in non-urban spaces. Unlike a fairytale, real-world politics offers no such innocence.