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 Some of you may know Soleil Ô, a ground-breaking documentary about the experience of African emigrants living in Paris. Less well-known is the fact that its director, Mauritian-born Med Hondo, later made what I can only describe as a Brechtian, Marxist musical charting the colonial history of the West Indies. Appropriately called West Indies, the film covers the period from the French conquest of the islands in the early 17th century up to the present day, frequently shifting time spans, sometimes in single, uninterrupted camera movements. (The elaborately choreographed long takes are a real gem.)  What makes the film so interesting for this thread is the way it incorporates and reconfigures musical elements. Unlike the Hollywood approach, which clearly delineates song-and-dance numbers from the rest of the plot, Hondo integrates the music much more fluidly into the overall structure, to the point where it’s often unclear when the theatrical numbers begin or end. Even the dialogue scenes employ a kind of rhythm that gives them a lyrical quality. Equally fascinating is the way Hondo mixes different styles of music to show us when we’re listening to the oppressors and when to the oppressed instead. As he put it himself: "I wanted to free the very concept of musical comedy from its American trademark. I wanted to show that each people on earth has its own musical comedy, its own musical tragedy and its own thought shaped through its own history."  The Brechtian elements are apparent from the very beginning, when a tracking shot leads us through a factory building to the slave ship sitting in its centre, which becomes our stage for the next two hours. Actors talking directly to the camera, documentary-style voice-overs, and the minimalist setting all serve to distance us from the proceedings, allowing us to see the exploitation that lies behind the glittering facade put on by the French. I realise that this kind of approach alienates many, and in the interest of fairness I should point out that West Indies does not have a plot in the conventional sense. It’s rather a series of impressions that showcase the Black experience in the colonies. But anyone interested in what you can achieve within the constraints of the musical genre should definitely give it a chance.       
Samuel Clemens fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Jul 9, 2021 |
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Jul 9, 2021 11:03
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 09:36 |
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