30786: Karshan(news) The Guardian review of Ghosts of Cite Soleil (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Michelle Karshan <michelle.karshan@gmail.com>

*Ghosts of Cité Soleil*

1 star (Cert 15)
*Peter Bradshaw*
*Friday July 20, 2007*

*Guardian*

This deeply questionable movie presents itself as a documentary. Actually it
is hardly more than an exploitative gangsta rap video about the worst slums
of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, and moviemaker Asger Leth is
saucer-eyed with excitement about those glamorous gun-toting warlords who
patrol the grim shanty-town called the Cité Soleil. In the dying years of
the Aristide regime, the government hired these hoodlums, nicknamed
"Chimères" or Ghosts, to attack opposition supporters. Leth tells the story
of two Chimère brothers, Bily and 2pac, suffering a crisis of power as, in
the chaos following Aristide's flight from Haiti, an international
peace-keeping force attempts to impose disarmament on the slum gangs. And
there is a personal angle. A French aid worker, Lele Senlis, gets
romantically involved with one of the gangstas, a development which
extinguishes her very timid criticism of their murderous habits.

Leth's movie is politically and morally illiterate. He has no interest in
how these dirt-poor guys got hold of their weaponry; presumably they
originate from the government armouries, but did they get them for nothing?
Or did they buy them? What with? What other kinds of business are they
running? Leth is utterly incurious about the context of the Chimères, and
the political world that created them - and naturally, the unsexy question
of people's living conditions in the Cité Soleil is of zero concern. He
certainly got extraordinary access to the Chimères, who duly rewarded him
with lipsmackingly violent footage at close quarters, showing real-life
gangstas firing real-life guns causing real-life injuries. So were his
subjects laying on a bit of gunplay for the camera? One of them, a wannabe
rapper shown singing some lyrics over the phone to Wyclef Jean, perhaps
thought the movie could be his passport to the big time. Did Leth encourage
these yearnings? He certainly encouraged these grotesque, macho idiots to
think of themselves as heroes.

Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian News and Media
Limited 2007