THE MAN BY THE SHORE
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1994 Max Hoffmann
THE MAN BY THE SHORE France, 1993, 101 min. In French and Creole with English Subtitles Director: Raoul Peck Producer: Pascal Verroust Screenplay: Peck, Andre' Grall Camera: Armand marco Editor: Jaques Comets Cast: Jennifer Zubar, Tolo Bissanthe, Jean-Michel Martial, Patrick Rameau Print: Frouma Films International
Rating: Scale 1-10 (10 = highest) 9
A starkly simple and engaging tale, of the escalation of violence and ascension of dictatorship in 1960's Haiti seen through the eyes of a young girl. Soft pastel images and idyllic landscape are punctuated by blood and violence, mostly done thankfully from a distance.
The film's greatest accomplishment is showing the horror of repression through mundane, everyday events (e.g., the wife of the local military ruler deciding she can return a pair of well-worn shoes, demanding a full refund) escalates to disastrous consequences. The film is sparse on dialogue and is very non-linear; some scenes and sequences repeat. The film is deliberately edited to reflect the jumbled memories of childhood.
Due to this, and the camera's occasional over-lingering embrace of household objects, a heavy dose of patience is required in the second and third reel. But it's worth the wait. The memories come together with tremendous clarity in the final thirty-five minutes of the film.
THE MAN BY THE SHORE is also refreshing in that there is only one Euro/White face in the entire film. For American audiences, it is an exhilarating experience to see blacks honestly portrayed, completely free of stereotypes. I can't remember the last film I've seen with a large black cast that didn't involve drugs or prostitution. The dusky skin tones are beautifully illumined in a variety of lighting situations, the acting subtle and elegant. Portraying repressed, silenced characters, the actors have to make much out of little dialogue. There is a scene in church, where the local warload sits serenely amidst a sea of faces, faces of the survivors of his victims. The image conveys far more than words or music could.
Well worth seeing. Better on a big screen than it would be on video. Due to subtitles, don't expect this one on PBS.
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews