“Reimagining Narratives: Lupin, Black Representation, and the Power of Art in Shaping Futures”

“You underestimated me. You didn’t look at me. You saw me, but you didn’t really look.” ― Assane Diop, Lupin

As an illuminated doom fades away from the screen, a tall, dark man, hovering over 6 feet, strolls down a bolstering hallway and puts on a pair of gloves in the heart of the Louvre on the bank of the Seine River — home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa, The Wedding Feast at Cana, and the Venus de Milo, attributed to Alexandros of Antioch.

Assane Diop, played by the Fulani Omar Sy, a César Award Best Actor born to a native Mauritanian Mother and Senegalese Father in Trappes in the Yvelines department of the Île-de-France region, makes a strong statement on screen through his role played as a black immigrant.

The LUPIN series is quite a beautiful work of art enlivening the thrilling journey of Arsene Lupin, “The Gentleman Burglar, “published across about 50 different novels/short stories/ plays tagged 𝘑𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘵 (I know all) by the legendary French Writer Maurice Leblanc. The fictional character takes many adventures, forms, appearances, and lives through all of Blanc’s writings. Though the screenplay is not entirely based on the original story (Mainly 1 & 2), it draws on some…