It’s winter in France, the light is dull, the camera pans over a snowy wasteland and enters a massive construction of steel and glass that is open at the sides, stopping in front of the reproduction of a wooden ship. The structure that juts out over the upper deck is inscribed with the words ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité’. Med Hondo uses this tracking shot to establish the setting of his feature film West Indies ou les nègres marrons de la liberté (1979), while opening up a much larger space to the imagination at the same time. The ship turns out to be a most versatile stage for a grotesque narrative of colonialism, slavery and the struggle for independence in the French West Indies. Med Hondo explores his many themes in this limited space, whether it be the Middle Passage, marronage, abolition or the history of labour migration to France. The film marries an aesthetics of thrift with the flamboyance of a musical; different time periods glide into one other as elegantly as the geographical points of reference; and only occasionally do the actors’ visible exhalations, an alienation effect created by the cold, remind us that West Indies was not shot on Martinique.
贡萨洛·沃丁顿,克里斯塔·法亚特,Cláudio da Silva,陈浪溪,Jorge Andrade,约翰·佩德罗·瓦斯,João Pedro Bénard,特丽莎·马德鲁加,Joana Bárcia,曼努埃拉·库托,迪奥哥·多瑞亚,Giacomo Leone,André Lourido,阿梅瑞科·席尔娃,赵嘉妮