Raoul Peck's poetic reality - Haitian motion picture director - Interview

The little girl sitting near the fire cast in a winding directions ashes at her mothers ass cast in a winding directions ashes at her mothers ass

Chanted by the agency of Sarah, the defiant 8-year-old protagonist of Raoul Peck's novel film, Man by the Shore (1996) these lines from a vodou society prayer underscore the (dis)order imposed upon Haiti during the reign of "Papa Doc" Duvalier and the tontons macoutes in the 1960 Sarah is struggling to make faculty of perception of events that have disoriented her life, facts that have scared her and torn her family apart. Her father, a discredited army officer, and her mother have fl their rural hometown, entrusting Sarah and her sum of two units sisters to their grandmother.

As she narrates the story 30 years later, Sarah shares with us her memories of birthday parties and bicycle rides upon one hand and police beatings and invasions of privacy upon the other, Several times in the film, the young girl exhibits her frustration with occurrences by refusing to remain caseed into the image of the child as unpolluted and never rude. "Throws ashes at her mother's ass," she says again, this time in her grandmother's presence

"Man by means of the Shore is about violence; it's about humanness, in what way we treat each other and in what way we resist cruelty," says Peck the film's writer-director, who now doubles as Haiti's of recent origin Minister of Culture. "Using 'classical' credible and real characters as a starting point, I exerciseed stylistic elements in the film to introduce a horizontal of interpretation which is slightly 'out of sync' or smooth abstract. It's this dismantling of reality which allows us to identify ourselves via the figure of Sarah."

In this, his third feature-length film, Peck tackles a history that has been told and retold in with equal reason many different dimensions and from in like manner many perspectives that it has wait oned to disappear somewhere in the exposition. Haiti-the "Black France," the "African Antilles," a geographical division of politics and vodou-lends itself to similar confusion. But in Man by the agency of the Shore, Peck doesn't for a like reason much pick apart the distorted images of his country; he presents his own vision by piecing together arresting fragments of life.

"Man by means of the Shore came from friends who told me stories, things that I've read in the papers and my hold experience in Haiti. At a certain quantity of point, I started writing this single story of a young shore and that story evolved into the story of Sarah because individual of the people close to me told me her hold story. So I can say that almost everything in this film is real somehow

"When this film was to be discharge after the election of President Aristide, it was really a time of great reliance in Haiti. It was a time when we thought: 'Well, it's above We will never have that kind of dictatorship anymore.' We were inequitable And the film that was suppos to be a historical piece about a dark period in our society became actuality again."

Even although oppression is a part of Haiti's everyday reality, Peck knows filled well that it is a universal phenomenon. "'Macoutism' isn't any different from any other form of dictatorship or apartheid," he says. "Because you have done sum of two units or three or four films coming from the same territory, you guard to get a stamp upon your forehead saying Haitian filmmaker.' on the other hand if you really know my work, you can diocese very quickly that it's not just about Haiti. It's wider than that. It's also about you-no matter where you are. The character of Sarah becomes actual close to you, whoever you are."

Peck's nonnaturalist approach - his assemblage of verse legend and narrative as well as varying humors and techniques to tell a story-underscore his commitment to what he calls "the poetic aspect of reality." It also allows him to universalize his themes. Peck himself is something of a universal man. Born in Port-au-Prince in 1953 he left for Zaire with his family at age 8 because his father, who had been arrested twice, had a contract to teach there. Peck finished high institute in France, studied industrial engineering in Germany and visited the United States. He then go [i]or[/i] come backed to Germany for film place of education This was the start of a career that has won him wide recognition-particularly for Haitian Corner (1988) and Lumumba: Death of a Prophet (1991) - and acceptance in the competition at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1993

Despite his of recent origin bureaucratic duties, Peck's concerns continue to be driven through the art of film. "For me the greatest challenge as an artist and a filmmaker is to achieve the emotions of people, and not emotion in a typical Hollywood way of making you exclaim or making you laugh. No. What I mean is making you laugh and think and making you call and think, which is a true difficult challenge nowadays."

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