DMovies - Your platform for thought-provoking cinema

Kanaval: A People’s History of Haiti in Six Chapters

Director - Leah Gordon and Eddie Hutton Mills - 2022

"Dirty gem"
A succinct and engrossing new documentary which shows a nation desperate to exorcise the ghosts of history through the celebration of the Kanaval - in cinemas on Friday, November 11th

This enlightening new documentary unfolds as a rapid lesson through the history of Haiti, scanning centuries of conflict in the blink of an eye. Told over the course of an hour, in six chapters, the duo Leah Gordon and Eddie Hutton Mills portray their People’s History of Haiti through the prism of the Kanaval, a yearly celebration fundamental to Haitian identity, designed as an act of national remembrance and as a remedy for the burden of history.

For Haiti’s history is far from insipid. Indeed, we are guided through a bloody tale of colonisation, genocide, displacement, slavery, revolution, debt, corruption, dictatorship, leading to more revolution… The Kanaval is the thread which animates our historical wanderings, each troupe in the processions depicting a particular historical period, event or personage.

One troupe shows members covered in black paint, as an homage to a series of meetings that took place before the famous Haitian revolution where proto-revolutionaries painted their skins in black in order to gather at night without being spotted by the regime’s watchmen. Indeed, in the late 18th century, the Haitian slaves were quick to grasp the significance of the French Revolution, and initiated their own revolt, culminating in over a decade’s battle for freedom, from 1791 to 1804. Today, the Kanaval’s mass of black-painted bodies serves thus as the symbol of a unified population striving to overthrow slavery.

As the film unravels, the Kanaval presents itself as a stage where the symbols of the collective Haitian unconscious come to life. While the carnival scenes take place in the land of allegorical dreamscapes, the viewer is struck by the brutality and violence of certain mise-en-scènes: a black beast agonises under the whip’s lashes, representing the abused and nameless slave; the ‘Coffin Carriers’ are meant to cradle the corpse of the nation, unable to survive under the pressure of a hostile world; the striking figure of the zombie, as opposed to the one represented in Western TV/ cinema, here becomes another distorted image of the slave, lacking in education, in training, nameless, sleepwalking and half-dead. While some scenes expose a clear anxiety surrounding the future of the nation, other scenes seek to underline the necessity of an institution such as that of the school.

Beneath the elaborate costumes and the papier-mâché masks is a yearning to make manifest the aching of an entire population. To convey this, the film is presented to us in varying formats: it cuts from lush widescreen black-and-white footage, showing day-to-day realities and Haitian street life, to colourful 16/9 images showcasing the processions themselves, where rituals, dances and costumes throw the entire nation into a state of trance. Varnished with an inspiring soundtrack, this dynamic film fulfils its mission to offer viewers a succinct and engrossing history of a country desperate to exorcise the weight of history.

Kanaval is in cinemas on Friday, November 11th.



"Dirty gem"

By Liván García-Duquesne - 09-11-2022

By Liván García-Duquesne - 09-11-2022

Livan Garcia-Duquesne is a UK-based French-Spanish filmmaker and writer. He holds an MPhil in Film & Screen Studies from the University of Cambridge and his academic work has been centred around t...

DMovies Poll

Are the Oscars dirty enough for DMovies?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Most Read

Forget Friday the 13th, Paranormal Activity and the [Read More...]
Just a few years back, finding a film [Read More...]
A lot of British people would rather forget [Read More...]
Another year has gone by, and DMovies is [Read More...]
A small family of four lives in a [Read More...]
Pigs might fly. And so Brexit might happen. [Read More...]

Read More

Is 65 the new Jurassic Park?

 

Marina Hillquist - 28-03-2023

Marina Hillquist argues that the American sci-fi action thriller by the creators of A Quiet Place had the potential to unseat the monopoly of the Jurassic Park franchise, but it struggled to escape some familiar trappings [Read More...]

Riotsville USA

Sierra Pettengill
2023

Eoghan Lyng - 28-03-2023

American documentary conducts a probing investigation into one of the USA's most shameful moments in history, the Vietnam War, offering few answers but many damning insights - in cinemas on Friday, March 31st [Read More...]

Reclaiming Vincente Minnelli’s overlooked gem

 

Isy Santini - 25-03-2023

Not quite what it seems: Isy Santini takes a dirty look at Vincente Minnelli's Brigadoon and argues that the film - which most thought to be a musical - was in reality a horror piece! [Read More...]

Facebook Comment

Website Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *