Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 8:24 am 
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ALEX DESCAS AND JOY O. OGUNMAKIN IN MURDER IN PACOT

Post-earthquake ravages and rage

Raoul Peck's Murder in Pacot is a two-couple chamber drama whose "chamber" is literally about to crumble -- a two-story white modern house in a wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince in the week following the terrible Haitian earthquake of 2010. It's the Haitian-born filmmaker's first narrative feature since Lumumba in 2000 and serves as a companion piece for his earthquake documentary Fatal Assistance (a key figure here is a futile, if not fatal, young white French "aid" person). The setup forces the issues. It also drains out wider context, since the camera rarely goes beyond the confines of the house.

Yet Peck has still made a strong, memorable film with some of the sharp fusions of class, sex and colonialism Claire Denis has been known for. The steely elegant Alex Descas who plays the unnamed owner of this ruined place is a Claire Denis regular, though he also played Mobutu in Lumumba. You come away with a feeling of anger and frustration, registered in Descas' rageful face, and also in the imperious glare of Nigerian singer Joy O. Ogunmakin, who plays his wife. This is like a play. Yet it's in a very real, off-stage place. And you don't care. Peck is a fierce, powerful director and he has assembled some terrific actors.

The privileged man and woman (known simply -- symbolically -- as "L'homme" and "La femme") awaken to a horrible reality. Probably their young adopted sun has died in the quake and they have nothing materially, either. An Italian expert comes around to tell them the house is in marginal condition, and, if not restored rapidly, will soon be razed. It appears only a second floor "apartment" is habitable, so the man rents the apartment to Alex (Thibault Vinçon), a high-level white French relief worker, to raise money for repairs, and they move to a servant's shelter outside. To their shock Alex brings in a village-born Haitian girlfriend, Andremise (excellent newcomer Lovely Kermonde Fifi). The sassy, ambitious Andremise soon announces she's changed her name to Jennifer. She naively thinks Alex will take her back fo France; but she may be bold enough to carry it off. In any case she is the life force of the scene.

I was intrigued by the arrival on screen of Vinçon, who played the pivotal, attractive-repellant figure in Emmanuel Bourdieu's Poison Friends, a wickedly clever tale of a seductive intellectual fraud, a kind of Tom Ripley of the Sorbonne. Alex seems a fool, but he could be a fraud too -- and one with access to money and aid packages. There is an air of danger about him simply because these things give him enormous power, and he knows nothing. And he can leave.

Jennifer may be a fraud too. Certainly the handsome Haitian "brother" who visits her at every opportunity is not a relation. He wants her to run away with him, perhaps taking anything of Alex's of value they can get their hands on. Jennifer also gives a big party on the day -- the action is divided into eight days -- when Alex is out in the country "helping." This event to which with difficulty she lures the haughty lady of the house is symbolic of the earthquake's temporary, but quite unreal, leveling of social distinctions. When Jennifer's "brother" invites her to dance the lady tells him "You have not the right." Jennifer is from a village, up by the bootstraps. The lady was educated abroad, like the gentleman, and they met there.

The man tries to dismiss the loss of their boy because he was not their blood offspring. His wife doesn't agree. This rift and this loss will freeze away their union to something merely cold and provisional. By the end, everyone will want to run off with Jennifer. But that is not what will happen. Meanwhile, as part of the heaviest symbolism, there is an unpleasant smell that everyone says is pervasive everywhere. But to the lady's temporary relief, their house servant, Joseph (Albert Moléon) returns. His firs question is "And the little one?" and he goes about searching for the body of the boy. In doing this he burrows under the house, which may cause it to collapse and him to be buried.

When the lady of the house tries to explore, she is quickly frightened back by an unfriendly crowd of uniformed workers assigned to "clean," who are simply shifting dust around on the street.

Yes, as I said, the symbolism is heavy-handed. But things unfold powerfully in the moment, with a palpable sense of danger and uncertainty. Outside helpers are already distrusted. The power forces may shift at any moment. On the other hand, ingenuity, shrewdness and ambition must still vie with class, which creeps back into the picture. It turns out Alex's origins are pretty humble, despite his present position.

Peck and his excellent writer Pascal Bonitzer (who also worked on Lumumba) and Haitian novelist Lyonel Trouillot cite Pasolini's Teorema as a source. Andremise-Jennifer is now the life-changing, sexually disruptive Visitor. Her powers parallel, or augment, the disruptive effect of the natural disaster which, in turn, is only one more particularly vivid outward sign of the long-lasting helplessness and exploitation of the country, where the dictatorship stole the homeowner's youth. How do you recover from a terrible disaster when you were already the poorest country in the hemisphere? (Bill Clinton arrivees: Alex puts on a coat and tie to meet him.) To do Peck and his excellent co-writers credit, we figure out a lot of what it all means later. When the movie is unreeling over its somewhat excessive length we're absorbed in the jaw-dropping theatricality and eventually the danger and threat of violence.

Murder in Pacot/Meurtre à Pacot, 130 mins., in French, with some Creole, debuted at Toronto 5 Sept. 2014, and since has shown at Berlin, Copenhagen, Geneva and Istanbul. Screened for this review as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it shows 26 April and 5 May (Sundance Kabuki) and 2 May (Pacific Film Archive, Berkelley); see schedule.

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THE HOUSE IN MURDER IN PACOT

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.


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