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Abstract
Who can claim the condition of postcoloniality and how can it be represented today? What is the role of cinema in disseminating knowledge about the “periphery”? This paper will argue that when a film privileges linguistic diversity, it can communicate better than the written word the full texture of minor or resistant identities. My example is taken from a series of short stories by Dany Laferrière that deal with sexual or “romance tourism” in Haiti, and that form the basis of French cinéaste Laurent Cantet’s Vers le sud. Much more than a film “adaptation” of the written text, Cantet’s film is a statement about Haiti, poverty, political tyranny, and “work” as alienated labor (a recurrent theme of all his films). What are the interpretive and critical issues that arise from the circulation of words and images in a global cultural market that can exacerbate the traffic in desire between North and South, as well as between writers, filmmakers, and their audiences? Is Cantet a “postcolonial” filmmaker, and, if so, might his films enable us to think through some of the theoretical issues posed by postcolonial studies?
Notes
1. Appiah takes what might be called a “cheap shot”, but this is only one step in a complex argument to which a hasty reading will not do justice. In particular, those interested in minimizing the role of postcolonial studies as “just a fad” have often appealed to this quote. See, for example, the entry on “Postcolonialisme” in the dictionary of Laplantine and Nouss, Métissages de Arcimboldo à Zombi (490–92). The article states that Appiah calls these intellectuals “non sans une certaine méchanceté, en les accusant de mercantilisme, de négoce import–export, l’intelligentsia comprador” (490).
2. For a useful typology of “African intellectuals” and a critique of their complicitous roles, see Ndubi.
3. For a detailed discussion of these terms, see Lionnet, “Transnationalism” and “Transcolonialismes”; see also Lionnet and Shih, Citation2005.
4. New translations have recently been published and others are in progress. See Philcox; and Lionnet, “Fanon”.
5. For a comprehensive overview of the history of “French Theory” in the US academy, see Cusset, in particular chap. 13, “La Théorie‐monde: un héritage planétaire” 301–22. For a collection that moves “beyond the usual suspects” (3), see Loomba et al., in particular the essay by Peter Hulme.
6. These were the figures given in the TV5 report; see also 〈http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Abuses/Haiti.asp〉. As of 1 September 2006, the figures were as follows:
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Haiti is the third hungriest country in the world after Somalia and Afghanistan;
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the richest 1% of the population controls nearly half of all of Haiti’s wealth;
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it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere;
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it is the fourth poorest country in the world;
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it ranks 146 out of 173 on the United Nations Human Development Index;
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it has a life expectancy of 52 years for women and 48 for men;
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adult literacy is about 50%;
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unemployment is 70%;
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85% of Haitians live on less than US$1 per day;
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Haiti ranks 38 out of 195 for under‐five mortality rate.
7. See also the autobiography by Jean‐Robert Cadet and the following site: 〈http://www.quicksitemaker.com/members/immunenation/restavek.html〉.
8. In her forthcoming study of colonialism in the Classical period, Sara Melzer discusses French colonial expansion in the New World and the arrival of “savages on the Seine” in 1550. She documents the tableau vivant and the playful performances of “savagery” that served to reinforce France’s sense of its own superiority.
9. The teenage protagonist and alter ego of Laferrière, Fanfan, is played by a young Guinean‐Quebecois with the most standard of Parisian accents. For the first and only comprehensive study of Laferrière’s work, see Mathis‐Moser. All translations of Laferrière’s texts are mine.