PORT-AU-PRINCE,
Haiti * A new visual art form is budding in Haiti, known mostly for
its naif art and flamboyantly painted buses known as "tap-tap" jitneys.
Low-budget movies have become the rage, sometimes drawing bigger audiences
than Hollywood blockbusters such as Planet of the Apes and Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer's Stone. Art work by Reginal
Moisette
"Our
cinema is embryonic, but full of potential," said filmmaker Arnold
Antonin, 57. "Haitians don't want to be invisible. They want to see
themselves and their problems portrayed on the screen."
Perhaps
Antonin's most heralded work is Courage of Women, a 2000 documentary
honored at the Cannes Film Festival that lovingly portrays the harsh
lives of two sisters. They break rocks and sell them to builders to
support their families, including unemployed young male relatives
who consider their drudgery demeaning.
After a popular uprising toppled the stifling 29-year dictatorship
of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986, Antonin returned to
his homeland after 23 years' exile in Europe and Venezuela.
So
filmmakers have turned to video, which is cheaper.
In
the past 15 years, about 20 feature-length video movies have been
shown, drawing crowds despite their poor lighting, awkward camera
work, amateur actors and stilted French dialogue. Most are lurid domestic
dramas and love stories with names like Afraid to Love and The Choice
of My Life.
Antonin
made several documentaries, four about Haitian artists, before he
tackled his first feature-length film last year. With a script by
Haiti's most prominent novelist, Gary Victor, the satiric comedy Piwoli
and the Gangster won critical and popular acclaim.
But
the film, like its characters, faced hurdles. The cultural center
run by Antonin was burglarized. Equipment he had accumulated over
10 years was stolen. The self-financed movie cost about $25,000, and
the actors and technicians, as well as Antonin and Victor, were not
paid. Though the film was shot in two weeks, it took three months
to edit because of daily electrical outages.
Still, at its release in February in adjacent rooms of the Imperial
Theater, Haiti's premier movie house, 350 people watched Piwoli and
the Gangster while only 50 opted for Planet of the Apes, which opened
at the same time. Over two months, Antonin's movie drew 30,000 moviegoers;
Harry Potter drew 10,000 over a similar period.
"It
makes me laugh and kills my stress. It is a true image of Haitian
foibles," said Gilbert Saint-Fleury, 25, who saw Piwoli 10 times.
Piwoli
is a former soldier who lives in suburban comfort but whose boastfulness
leaves his dreamy wife cold.
One
day, a gunman holds her up and drives away in her husband's new car,
leaving her stunned, and in love. She is impressed by his impeccable
French and the piercing eyes visible through his mask.
Piwoli,
mourning the loss of his car and frustrated by his wife's indifference,
places an ad in the paper defying the gangster to come and steal her
too.
Disguised
as a U.S. Embassy employee, the gangster turns up at the Piwoli home,
hoodwinks the husband, puts sleeping powder in the couple's drinks
and struts off with the unconscious wife slung over his shoulder.
When
the scene ended in a moviehouse in St. Marc, on Haiti's west coast,
an engaged but angry audience rose to its feet shouting: The moviegoers
found Piwoli's humiliation unacceptable and threatened to boycott
Antonin productions if Piwoli wasn't given a chance to take revenge.
After
that experience, we added To Be Continued' to the end," Antonin said.
PORT-AU-PRINCE,
Haiti * A new visual art form is budding in Haiti, known mostly for
its naif art and flamboyantly painted buses known as "tap-tap" jitneys.