#caribbeancinema : Trip down memory lane
Note: this article was published for the first time on myinsaeng.com on March 3rd 2016.
This article is inspired by the theme of a French talk show: what is your opinion on the representation of #outremer in the 7th art ?
After Zita Hanrot's “Best New Actress” award at the Césars, there were countless articles with the unfitting expression taht she was "the first Black woman to win a César". Film director Euzhan Palcy is the one who got this title with her “Best First Film” César for “Sugar Cane Alley” in 1984. Zita is the first black actress to win a César. This "misunderstanding" comes from unchecked ignorance that prevents journalists from googling basic info before writing their articles. This proves one thing: French culture doesn’t acknowledge Black people’s contributions to its growth, there’s no transmission of Black people’s achievements. An award is still an award, but before the award, one must have already created the work in order to pass it on and for it to become common knowledge from generation to generation.
Black people from French overseas territories are poorly represented in cinema because those who can imagine, create and portray them with dignity don’t have enough opportunities to do so. But who can talk better about the experience of a Black person from overseas than another Black person from overseas? This is what Christian Lara explains in this interview of 2011 where he talks about his career, his desire to make films and his conscious choice to make Caribbean cinema which he defines in 4 criteria: the main actor must be West Indian, the action must take place in the West Indies (but this is incidental), part of the dialogues must be in Creole and the director must be West Indian.
As I said in my “Siméon” review, it would have been great to have more than one Caribbean film in my favorite films of all time. Apart from the fact that I’m a romcom fan who could be so happy with some “Caribbean love”, I'm faced with two obstacles: I don't have the luxury of choosing from a large stock of films and the very few films that exist aren’t accessible. Google "Caribbean films" and you will see how little information there is. Even finding a trailer is complicated. I take this opportunity to salute the initiative of cinemanioc. Unless you are part of the generation that was aware of a film's release or follow closely the news of festivals/seminars dedicated to French overseas cinema, it is too difficult for the generation of the 2000s to know the films of the 70's, 80's, 90's. Or else you have to keep an eye on the programming on France Ô channel. I’d like to watch “Coco La Fleur as a candidate”, can someone tell me where to find it?
Update: it’s available on some streaming platforms.
But back to my first question: the representation of French overseas territories. The plural is important. My first real memory of the Caribbean in a French film was the Black postman in “Promotion Canapé” (1990) partially set in Martinique. As an adult, I now know that the Afrocaribbean postman is a cliché that French cinema loves, except that I found out the origin of this stereotype while watching a documentary at 11 p.m. many years later. That's why I thought the opening credits of “La Première étoile” (2009) were really well done, even though I think only a small percentage of its 1.6 million viewers made the connection with the Bumidom era to explain the presence of Caribbean people in Paris region.
As far as children are concerned, my first two (only?) memories are : Orélie of “Siméon” (1992) and José of “Sugar Cane Alley” (1983). I compare the character of Orélie to what Hermione (the Emma Watson version because Black Hermione is inconceivable given the Hermiongate) represented for millions of Harry Potter fans. It’s not so much about identifying oneself, to say "this character is like me". It's more about saying "I can be as cool as this character" or simply "wow! such a great character exists". As far as women are concerned, I only have Firmine Richard in “Romuald and Juliette” (1989) in mind. To me, she is to French cinema what Phylicia Rashad (Clair Huxtable in “Cosby Show”) is to television: the super mom... She is an incarnation of the strong, courageous, proud Black woman who takes care of her loved ones… But while Phylicia Rashad would be associated with (upper) middle-class representation, Firmine Richard has always been associated with the lower-class representation. I know we can argue about the nature of the roles she's been given, but you know what I mean when I say super mom. For insyance, she has very few scenes with Serigne M'Baye in “Dans Tes Rêves” (2004). Yet, she puts so much intensity in the role of a mother who still supports her son when he doesn't choose the path she would have liked for him that her character steals the scene without uttering a word (by the way, it seems to me that it’s never indicated in the film that they’re Caribbean, but since she wants him to work at the post office...) . The other Caribbean or Black actresses portraying Caribbean women that come to mind are on television. And this is, in my opinion, one of the reasons why Black people from overseas territories have difficulty getting visibility in cinema.
The best opportunities come from television. I don't know how to react when French Twitter talks about “The Book of Negroes” or the “Roots” reboot to discuss the representation of slavery, when we have the French series “Bitter Tropics” (2007). I'm not saying that you must like the series because it's French. Just acknowledging its existence and discussing it in the same way as English-speaking people do it with their series would already be a way to start the work of transmission so that when another French production on slavery comes up, the discussion doesn't start again only on a comparison with the United States or on the impression that it's pioneering in France, that nothing has been done before. Hence the fact that I was surprised by the film “Case Départ” (2011). This film is problematic. It takes the comedy approach to deal with a painful subject barely represented in French cinema without trying to soften the pain of the AfroCaribbean viewer but without offending the sensitivity of the non-AfroCaribbean viewer.
When I use the expression “French overseas” and not just Black people or Afrocaribbean, it’s because overseas French territories are at the crossroads of a multitude of cultures. French cinema could very well have produced a film like “Rapanui” (1994) or “Dance with Wolves” (and yes, I know that the film is problematic in its depiction of Native Americans), but why not a film about the Arawaks that would have been distributed all around the world? Why not a film about the Asian communities in the Caribbean? Not necessarily in a historical perspective. There are stories to be written in a contemporary setting too. We can also talk about Caribbean youth. And here I feel obliged to mention “Nég' Maron” (2005) and to add that Caribbean youth is multi-dimensional in its search for freedom and personal fulfillment. Cinema can show the experience of the Caribbean people born and raised in Europe as in “35 Rhums” (2009) or the young diaspora scattered around the world who settle "elsewhere" and raise their children "elsewhere". The risk of becoming alienated and not understanding one's place in a culture that has become one's own, especially when that culture itself excludes you, is already a reality as Cecile Emeke's Strolling series shows.
The theme of exile, of "return to the Native Land" (I won’t offend you by giving you the author of this reference) speak to all generations. If we really need to legitimize the French overseas subject, what could be better than adapting a literary success? Admittedly, the contemporary French cinematic tradition is not fond of fantasy, but vampires have been in fashion for 10 years. New Orleans is the place of predilection for the American imagination as soon as we talk about magic and vampires. This is what Caribbean countries can be for France. But I mean in a serious way, not in a ridiculous way. Following the example of the character of Tituba, of whom Queenie in “American Horror History 3” claims to be a descendant, French Caribbean literature has novels with great female leads. Yes, because West Indian cinema tends to overlook women in all their diversity, celebrating only the potomitan woman [t/n: pillar woman], the courageous mother for others, or the girlfriend who lives only through her man. Moreover, in “Dyablès”, Timalo strays away from usual representation made by men to write women who are at the very heart of his plot... If one day the novel is adapted into a film, the question of dialogues in Creole will arise, but when we see the same people making fun of the patois that Rihanna uses in "Work", we tell ourselves that it is all the more necessary to claim the Creole that allows us to communicate with the other islands without having to go through Spanish and English, a Creole that is all the more difficult to keep alive as the younger generations speak it less and less.
I approach this question from the stories/plots perspective, but we can also talk about the fact that our islands represent a heaven-like setting that has nothing to envy to Hawaii or Miami. St. Barth is already popular among stars, so shooting a romantic comedy movie there (yes, I want to) isn’t such a far-stretched idea. Comedy, melodrama, thriller, fantasy, horror, historical, afrofuturism, Caribbean countries can be a background for any kind of genres. Let me give you another example of a TV series. There have been so many critics about “The Bay of Flamboyants Trees”, but who says we can't have a Caribbean “Dallas”? Caribbean audiences love telenovelas, we can have our own telenovelas without an adaptation. In fact, a young Guadeloupean filmmaker shot “Soukougnan” in 2008, a mini-series in the fantasy genre with manga elements.
Instead of seeing the cheap side of the visual, let's rather see the audacity to imagine something else. When I look at the series “Death in Paradise”, shot in Guadeloupe, or “Cut” (Reunion Island), or “Foudre” a few years ago in New Caledonia, I still get in awe of the diveristy and beauty that our islands offer. There are so many stories to be told against a backdrop of azure sea or waterfalls. And which brings me to my last thought, I'm talking about my experience as a Caribbean viewer. I would really be interested in being able to quote French overseas films about other islands without having to rack my brains.
I would have liked to put names and faces on regions other than by watching the Miss France contest or documentaries at 3AM. I would have liked to have an imaginary world full of Caribbean legends as well as legends from New Caledonia, Reunion Island or to have an idea of what the other French overseas vierwers of my age, my parents, the young generation are going through. Seeing situations on a screen can be comforting by telling yourself that you aren’t the only one going through positive and negative experiences that you can't always put into words. Cinema would be a formidable vehicle for highlighting the diversity of French overseas culture and for thinking about it as a whole.
In the age of the Internet and social media, creators have a great tool to meet, exchange ideas and set up ambitious projects without having to compromise (too much) on the message they want to get across. We can also talk about the representation of French overseas territories in the 7th art in the perspective of production and what happens behind the cameras. Shirley Souagnon started the afrocast.org website precisely to facilitate this link between French Afro-descendants in an audiovisual world that makes them invisible. What could small production companies do if they were able to join forces on promising projects? We would be able to create studios that could multiply projects. Let's take an American example, as we like to do so well, before Spike Lee, before John Singleton, before Gina Prince-Bythewood, there was Melvin Van Peebles and Gordon Parks who directed “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song” and “Shaft” in 1971. So, yes, #OscarsSoWhite, but the hashtag can exist because there are already seasoned talents today who benefit from the efforts made before them and produce the efforts to continue to pave the way for the upcoming generation. I'm not saying that the Blaxploitation system should be an inspiration to French cinema. I'm just saying that French overseas cinema can also be seen in terms of movement and not isolated facts at a given moment, so that we go beyond a recognition of "the first of, the first to, the pioneer". Festivals like Femi are all the more necessary to showcase these films, they just need to be provided the material.
Let’s put things into perspective. Let’s say things work in cycles, there is the chosen one for each generation. It's a talented young person who manages to set up his/her project once every ten years, then the industry gives little or no support to his/her subsequent initiatives, pushing him/her to look to other horizons, or he/she struggles for years trying to make a film while other filmmakers are shooting three or four films over that period. In the 70s and 80s, we had Christian Lara (who continues to work, mind you). In the late 80's and early 90's, we had Euzhan Palcy (who is still working but in Hollywood). In the 2000’s, I think we can talk about Jean-Claude Barny and Lucien Jean-Baptiste... According to my calculations, there are normally two Caribbean filmmakers who should bring us a little gem in the next ten years. They are probably already at work if they want their films to be released by 2026. As well as all the creative geniuses that I see on Twitè (pronounced in Creole) and who will continue to bring to life the "French overseas cinema" whose reason for existence should not be to serve as the "diversity" card in French cinema with a film made every ten years. It should be able to be a full-fledged representative of this same French cinema both for France itself and on the international scene.