Caribbean Beat — 25th Anniversary Edition — March/April 2017 (#144)

SCREENSHOTS
Site of Sites
Directed by Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada, 2016,
61 minutes
A pair of coconut trees frames a beach at sunrise, waves
lapping against the sand. This is no clichéd Caribbean
image, however: a wide, rutted ditch running into the sea
points to disruptive human activity, which is reinforced by
the piece of industrial equipment
sitting off to the right. A man walks
into the shot, up to the machine
and switches it on. A puff of
black smoke belches out, and the
thrumming of the engine disturbs
the dawn.
So opens Site of Sites, the new
documentary by Natalia Cabral
and Oriol Estrada of the Dominican
Republic. It furthers the direct
approach to the non-fiction form that was so effectively
on display in the duo’s debut, You and Me, a portrait of
the relationship between a maid and her mistress. Site of
Sites continues to probe themes explored in You and Me —
race, power, economics — but on a broader scale, even as it
maintains that film’s equanimity and empathy.
Site of Sites is set almost entirely within the confines of
an upscale housing development somewhere in the DR.
Precisely framed static shots — the camera never moves
— showing the (invariably) black people employed as
gardeners, domestics, and labourers, are interspersed with
scenes showing the (invariably) white people who employ
them relaxing in swimming pools, playing golf, and having
barbecues. Conversation is largely
desultory; people are simply living
their lives.
The cumulative result is a
sobering rendering of black and
white, poverty and wealth, work
and play, a social dynamic little
altered since it came into being
centuries ago. (And, the film
suggests, with little chance of
being altered.) Site of Sites is
exemplary of what can be done with little more than a
camera in one’s hand and an idea in one’s head: politically
committed and formally rigorous filmmaking of a very
high order.
For more information, visit faulafilms.com
Green & Yellow
Directed by Miquel Galofré, 2016, 19 minutes
For a decade now,
Barcelona-born, Trinidadand-Tobago–based
filmmaker Miquel
Galofré has been making
acclaimed documentaries
in the Caribbean.
Whether they’re about
prisoners creating music (Songs of Redemption) or atrisk
children discovering the transformative power of
art (Art Connect), Galofré’s films are characterised by
their boundless empathy for the marginalised lives they
celebrate, as well as their unforced optimism.
His latest film, Green & Yellow, is a work of disarming
and devastating simplicity. Shot on the streets of
Port of Spain, it contains the interwoven, direct-tocamera
testimonies of two homeless men, Sheldon
“Sketch” Aberdeen and Shawn “Yankee” Brown, both
crack cocaine users. There is no music score, and the
cinematography is in stark black and white — until the
closing moments, when the colours of the film’s title
saturate the screen. The running time of Green & Yellow
is just under twenty minutes; its power will remain with
you for much longer than that.
For more information, visit trinidadandtobagorocks.
com
I Am a Politician
Directed by Javier Colón Ríos, 2016, 90 minutes
Some explanatory
text at the beginning
of I Am a Politician
declares this satire to
be “almost a work of
fiction” — which, given
what follows, makes it
a depressing reminder that we now live in the time of
President Trump. Javier Colón Ríos’s follow-up to I Am
a Director, his comic debut, I Am a Politician tracks the
follies of Carlos (Carlos Marchand), an ex-convict seeking
to become governor of Puerto Rico.
Colón Ríos’s satire is light, sometimes even slight. Not
all his gags work: for example, a joke involving Carlos
“coming out” to his mother as a member of a political
party different from hers feels forced. And some nuances
may be lost on those not conversant with Puerto Rico’s
unique political system. That said, the story of a boorish
narcissist, opportunistically hopping from one political
party to another, is one with which most people can no
doubt identify.
For more information, visit facebook.com/
yosoyunpolitico
Reviews by Jonathan Ali
32 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM