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Aristide and the Endless Revolution |
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Contributed by Sara Schieron
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Sunday, 18 December 2005 |
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Trailer
Official
Site
| Director: Nicolas Rossier
Producer: Nicolas Rossier
Stars: Features Aristide, Sen. Maxine Waters, Noam Chomsky, Rep. Charles Rangel, more
MPAA
Rating: NR
Year of
Release:
2005
Running Time : 84
minutes |
OUT OF THE ASHES
Aristide and the Endless Revolution by Nicolas Rossier
Filmed over the course of two years, Aristide and the Endless
Revolution is a well-balanced journey through the political success and
scandal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first popularly elected
president since the nation's liberation from French Colonial Rule
in1804. In telling the history of the political figure the film
connects his toppled presidency to the political and economic history
of the Nation. And though a Haitian National identifies this parallel
so succinctly when he says, "the history of Aristide is the history of
Haiti", Aristide and the Endless Revolution does not set out to compare
the two histories, rather to connect them and contextualize Haiti's
previous and failed attempts at democracy in a larger setting of
international economics.
The film boasts interviews from noted authorities on Haiti's struggling
democratic climate: Economist Paul Farmer, Linguist Noam Chompsky,
Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega, Congresswoman Maxine
Waters, and Aristide himself. The voices heard in the film are not
singularly those in support of the work of Aristide but also those in
opposition, finally offering the non-partisan viewer an opportunity to
identify the nation's climate and begin his or her own search for a
side to view from.
The style of the film is strikingly non-interventionist, which make's
its capacity to stir its audience (and stir it does) both logical and
surprising. A purist might say that the film avoids style in an effort
to offer its audience "film truth". (You can read the Director's view
on this issue in the Features Section.) Yet, regardless of his
intention, one has to wonder what sort of affect this deliberately
neutral stance has on the immediacy of the scene. Peaceful assemblies
in the street are watched from the sidelines as militia overtakes them
and, each of them quickly ends in bloodshed. Fallen and decaying bodies
are seen on dirt roads with a distanced eye that suggests as much
involvement as ghosts might offer their bystanders. And from the
citizens who we see involved, for life or death, in these conflicts, we
can observe a worn and distanced calm. While new to us, these visions
aren't new to them, and their calm is finally mirrored in the film's
complicated and poetic neutrality. Even politically minded interviewees
stringent in their biases seem more affected by the upheaval in Haiti
than the citizens who risk and watch...all this while we watch and
somehow risk nothing.
This film is a must see, not singularly because it details and
contextualizes the nation of Haiti and its international condition, but
because it is so rare for a film to exhibit such a sense of
responsibility towards it's audience and its subject. And this show of
responsibility pays off in such powerful ways. The crowd at the Roxie
the night I saw the film was small but openly vocal and the response
following the film was enthusiastic applause. Would that all such
activist minded pictures accomplish so much in just 90 minutes and
would that we always leave the theatre with a sense that we are part of
the problem and therefore part of the solution as well.
 
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