A Mother's Letter

One of the most confusing thematic aspects of [i]Black Girl[/i] for me was the scene involving the letter from Diouana's mother. The letter, ridiculing Diouana for wasting her money and demanding money be sent home to aid her in illness, created a reaction from Diouana that was hard for me to swallow. Diouana tears up the letter, claiming that the letter was not her mother's. Seeing that her mother was supportive of her trip to France, I do no think this can be taken literally. So what was Diouana saying?

Perhaps she was saying that she no longer wanted to support economic dependence on the French and refused to send the money home for ideological reasons, thus relating her mother to her entire community as a whole. In any case, her mother later refuses to be paid in the film's final sequence. This leads a viewer to believe that Diouana's suicide prompted her mother to rethink her worldview.

Whether this turn of events is believable or not, there are deeper issues present here. Was Diouana's community right to reject French money if it meant being unable to help her mother's illness? If it was right, was Sembene communicating that certain sacrifices must be made in order to attain economic independence from the French?

In any case, I'm interested in what people have to say about the letter, because I have a feeling I could be missing the point completely and would like some insight from others who may have understood this aspect of the film more clearly.