Lyricism and literacy complement and contrast in Takashi Sugimoto‘s first feature film, Black Gold. It is an equally oneiric and objective tale of transactions, pious, physical, and practical. Stark black-and-white imagery mixes the minimalistic realism of a social documentary with the allegorical artistry of a spiritual drama. The film starts in the rural south of India, where a woman named Saraswathi grooms her daughter‘s long tresses, carefully collecting loose hair. The hair is bound and rolled up into small coils, the Black Gold of the title.

The latter doesn’t appear until almost half an hour into the spare story, told in long, rigid takes that demand as much patience as they invested in closely observing the protagonists. Besides the mother, these are mostly young men of the Narikurava—a tribe still stigmatized due to its placement under colonial Britain‘s Criminal Tribes act—navigating the shoddy streets on motorcycles loaded with towering stacks of tin vessels. These, as their customary call “Kudalu patre kasu” (“vessels in exchange for hair”) tells, are to be traded with their mostly female clients, brokering household goods for hair coils.

Selling hair locally and economically in the form of luxurious western wigs has become an alternative form of income, especially for the lower classes. For hair, going by 2000 rupees per kilo, is far more valuable than scrap metal or copper, which at best brings in 1% of that sum. By now India has become the world’s top exporter of human hair, making up over 90 % of global exports. A large share of this comes from temple donations like the one Saraswathi gives in a sudden change of heart.

The other part comes from loose hair as informally collected by the Narikurava. Their economical and social fringe existence is subtly aligned with the main character’s visible variance after shaving her head bald for sacrifice. While the symbolical rich semi-documentary reminiscent of a factual fable refuses to provide most of the background information given above, it creates a spiritually and stylistically immersive incentive to learn about and understand the often obscure actions. Still, the staged look of some scenes and narrative contrivances challenge the screening of its world premiere in the documentary section of Tallinn‘s Festival.

Black Gold had its world premiere at the Tallin Black Nights Film Festival.