Review of French filmmaker Fabienne Le Houérou’s film : ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI)

‘‘A cash cow amidst cultural crossroads in Rajasthan’s Thar desert’’ : Migration and selfhood in French documentary filmmaker Fabienne Le Houérou’s film : ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ © by film critic Lalit Rao (FIPRESCI)

 

French anthropologist, historian and documentary filmmaker Fabienne Le Houérou’s latest work, ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’, stands at a curious intersection between anthropology, autobiography, and documentary filmmaking. It is neither a conventional ethnographic film nor a strictly personal diary; rather, it negotiates the uneasy terrain between self-representation and cultural exploration. As a researcher affiliated with the CNRS (France’s prestigious National Centre for Scientific Research), Ms. Fabienne Le Houérou has spent many decades working on issues of migration, memory, and the Muslim world. But unlike most academic anthropologists, she also situates herself at the center of her work—openly narrating her vulnerabilities, her friendships, and even her betrayals.

 

The result is a film that unsettles the clear boundary between the observer and the observed. By calling her film ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’, Le Houérou insists that anthropology is never objective: it is a constant negotiation between one’s own life trajectory and the communities one encounters. Yet, while the film is conceptually daring and emotionally honest, it also struggles somewhat technically, sometimes undercutting its own ambitions.

 

Opening frames in Goa and Rajasthan

 

The film begins with a striking image: French actress Marianne Borgo, draped in a pink sari, dancing on the beaches of Goa. This playful sequence does more than introduce a friend of the filmmaker. It establishes the personal tone of the work, a declaration that friendship and intimacy are as central to Le Houérou’s anthropology as academic rigor. Ms. Borgo, who divides her professional as well as personal lives between Paris and Goa, is a regular presence in Indian cultural spaces and is treated with warmth by Indian cinéphiles. Her inclusion reflects not only her friendship with Le Houérou but also the permeability between the worlds of cinema, anthropology, and lived cultural exchange.

From the sea we move quickly to the sands: Thar desert of Rajasthan. This shift from Goa’s cosmopolitan beaches to Rajasthan’s arid expanses signals the film’s core theme—migration not just across borders but across social, emotional, and cultural terrains. The Manganiar community, a group of Muslim musicians steeped in syncretic traditions, becomes the primary focus of the film. Le Houérou has long studied and befriended Manganiar musicians, making this film both a continuation of her ethnographic commitment and a confession of its complications.

 

The Threefold approach in ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’

 

Le Houérou’s method in ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ unfolds along three overlapping strands:

 

1. Ethnographic description of the Manganiars: Their music, rituals, and hybrid religious practices form a key component of the narrative.

 

2. Personal friendships and conflicts: Notable figures from the Manganiar community like Salim Khan and Shera Khan are described as “best friends with hearts of gold,” while others are depicted as exploitative or opportunistic.

 

3. Critical self-reflection: Le Houérou refuses to sanitize her own experience—she documents her sense of being used as a “cash cow,” her anger at betrayals, and her emotional entanglements.

This threefold strategy positions the film somewhere between Jean Rouch’s cinéma vérité and a deeply personal memoir. Having been Rouch’s student in the past, Le Houérou clearly inherits his commitment to “shared anthropology.” But unlike Rouch, she foregrounds her own wounds—romantic, financial, and existential.

 

Depiction of money, seduction and betrayal in ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’

 

One of the most striking threads in the film concerns the way men in the Manganiar community associate themselves with foreign women. Le Houérou does not shy away from exposing uncomfortable dynamics. She narrates how some men—including a musician named Amir Khan—expressed interest in her not for love but for financial gain. The seduction quickly takes on grotesque dimensions when Amir Khan, in a moment of juvenile cruelty, sends her the picture of his lump of excrement. His narcissism peaks in a bizarre question: “Do you have life insurance?”

Such bizarre as well as cruel moments reveal the harsh underside of cross-cultural intimacy. For Le Houérou, this discovery is doubly painful: it shatters both her anthropological neutrality and her personal trust. Yet by including these experiences, she forces us to confront the material inequalities underpinning encounters between Western researchers and impoverished communities. The anthropologist cannot escape the fact that, to the local eye, she resembles wealthy French business tycoons Liliane Bettencourt or Bernard Arnault—symbols of almost unimaginable wealth.

 

In this sense, the film complicates the oft-romanticized image of the fieldworker. The anthropologist is not simply a neutral chronicler of culture but also a potential source of money, gifts, and opportunities. The fact that Le Houérou admits to bringing food and make-up material to impoverished women in Jaisalmer, or filming Manganiar weddings, further underscores this dynamic. Generosity, affection, exploitation, and resentment bleed into each other.

 

Honest depiction of women, marriage, and cultural contradictions in ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’

 

Le Houérou’s lens is not restricted to men; she also attends closely to women in the Manganiar community. In documenting weddings, she emphasizes the dependent position of women, describing them as “absolutely weak” and manipulated by “cunning men.” At the same time, she lambasts the way Manganiar wives encourage their husbands’ flirtations with foreign women. This paradox—where poverty pushes entire families into complicit arrangements—raises difficult questions about agency and survival.

 

The film also flays Western women—French and Japanese tourists—who willingly participate in these liaisons, sometimes glamorizing them as exotic romances. In doing so, Le Houérou exposes not just the opportunism of Manganiar men but also the fantasies of Western women who romanticize cultural difference while ignoring power asymmetries.

 

The theme of aging in ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’

 

Woven into these ethnographic accounts is Le Houérou’s meditation on aging. Growing old, she insists, is inevitable, and the encounters in Rajasthan are also refracted through her own awareness of time passing. The frankness with which she admits to seduction attempts, disappointments, and loneliness adds depth to the film. It is not merely about “them” (the Manganiars) but also about “her”—the anthropologist as a woman navigating desire, betrayal, and mortality.

 

‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ also talks about ‘‘Stendhal Syndrome’’ and the weight of wealth

 

Le Houérou introduces the notion of “Stendhal syndrome” to describe her disorientation in Jaisalmer—a place where beauty, poverty, and expectation overwhelm her senses. She is seen as inexhaustibly wealthy, even though she herself does not belong to the class of billionaires like Bernard Arnault or Liliane Bettencourt. Shooting in locations such as Nachna Haveli (linked to the Jaisalmer royal family) underscores this tension: she moves between royal luxury and desert poverty, always negotiating her perceived role as patron or benefactor. 

Her collaboration with Indian film critic and French, translator and interpreter Lalit Rao during her shoot in Jodhpur adds another layer: the film is not just about the community but about networks of friendship and exchange between French and Indian cultural actors. Lalit Rao’s scooter tour of Jodhpur exemplifies the informal, everyday relationships that underpin the film’s ethnographic process.

 

Fabienne Le Houérou’s festival context and past work

 

The film also situates itself within Le Houérou’s larger trajectory as a filmmaker. Some scenes from the Rajasthan International Film Festival (RIFF) recall her earlier success with her film ‘‘Princes and Vagabonds’’, which won Best Documentary award in 2023. The insertion of festival material, however, is double-edged. On the one hand, it affirms her integration into India’s cultural networks. On the other, it highlights the performative nature of anthropology-as-cinema—always subject to the judgments of festival juries, critics, and audiences.

 

Aesthetic choices and technical limitations in ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’

 

While the film is rich in content, it falters aesthetically. Much of it is shot with handheld devices, which produce an intimate but often unstable visual texture. The most serious drawback, however, lies in the artificial intelligence–generated drawings. Intended perhaps as a visual experimentation, they come across as crude and jarring, undermining the emotional and ethnographic depth of the footage. All viewers accustomed to polished documentary craft may find the film visually uneven, oscillating between evocative location shots and amateurish inserts.

This weakness is compounded by the fact that Le Houérou is herself an accomplished academic and novelist—her intellectual rigor is undeniable, yet her cinematic craft lags behind her conceptual daring. Although supported by regular collaborators like Alba Penza and Aurélie Scortica, she nevertheless delivers a film that feels more like a research diary than a polished documentary.

 

Anthropology as self-fiction

 

The most significant contribution of ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ is its theoretical stance. By embracing “self fiction,” Le Houérou acknowledges that every act of anthropology is mediated by the anthropologist’s own desires, fears, and projections. The “migration” is thus not only about people moving across borders but also about the constant movement between subjectivity and objectivity, between self and other.

The film reminds us that anthropology is never innocent. The anthropologist cannot simply “study” a community without being studied in return. To the Manganiars, Le Houérou is not a neutral researcher but a potential partner, benefactor, or target. To her French colleagues, she is both an academic and a woman entangled in intimate relationships abroad. By making this entanglement explicit, she transforms anthropology into autobiography—and autobiography into anthropology.

 

A primordial conclusion: ‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ is a flawed but an important film 

 

‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ is not a perfect film. Its technical execution—particularly the use of AI-generated drawings—undermines its overall impact. Its handheld cinematography, though intimate, often feels improvised rather than deliberate. Yet, in terms of content and honesty, the film is absolutely invaluable. There have been a very few anthropologists who are willing to expose their vulnerabilities and disappointments as candidly as what Ms. Le Houérou has done here in her film.

 

By situating herself at the center of her fieldwork, she forces us to confront the uncomfortable truths about cross-cultural encounters, especially those shaped by money, gender, and desire. In doing so, she extends the legacy of Jean Rouch while charting her own path: one where anthropology becomes not just a study of the other but a relentless interrogation of the self.

 

‘‘Self Fiction, Self Migration’’ is therefore best understood not as a polished documentary but as an anthropological confession—a record of friendship and betrayal, generosity and exploitation, illusion and disillusion. It is flawed, but precisely in its flaws, it reveals the messy, contradictory reality of human encounters.