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[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(NYTimes, 27 June 07)


'GHOSTS OF CITÉ SOLEIL'

Hip-Hop Gangsters on an Isle of Chaos

By A. O. SCOTT



Asger Leth's "Ghosts of Cité Soleil" offers a tour of a notorious, hellish
slum in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. There, in 2004, when this
documentary was shot, gang leaders known as Chimères (the ghosts of the
title) fought with one another, and also with opponents of Haiti's
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, for control of the streets. Mr.
Aristide's decade-long decline from hero of democracy to belligerent
strongman provides a backdrop for Mr. Leth's focus on two Chimère leaders
as they struggle for dominance and survival amid chaos and squalor.

The glimpse afforded into their world is impressive in its intimacy; the
filmmaker and his camera operators were given remarkable access, and were
brave enough to venture into one of the most lawless, desperate and
dangerous neighborhoods in the world.

But Mr. Leth also seems to have been seduced by 2pac and Bily, the
sometimes rivalrous brothers whose words and actions dominate the film. And
while they are certainly charismatic figures, the absence of critical
distance adds an uncomfortable dimension of myth-making and romanticism to
Mr. Leth's chronicle of their violent lives.

This effect is augmented by the soundtrack, much of it by the
Haitian-American hip-hop star Wyclef Jean (who appears in the film and
takes an executive producer credit), and also by Mr. Leth's slick, speedy
editing.

Bily and 2Pac, who aspires to be a rapper as well as a warlord, live a
gangster lifestyle that exceeds the wildest fantasies of an American
hip-hop video. Their mixture of nihilism and sentimentality - the way they
combine loyalty to home turf with a ruthless appetite for violence - is
undoubtedly authentic. Whether they deserve to be treated as outlaw
pop-culture heroes is a question Mr. Leth declines to explore.
Along with 2Pac and Bily, "Ghosts of Cité Soleil" introduces us to Lele, a
French aid worker who is drawn into the brothers' orbit, becoming 2Pac's
lover, aide-de-camp and sometime chauffeur. She also serves as a go-between
when tensions arise between the brothers, though she herself may also be a
source of the trouble. At one point she advises 2Pac to hold on to his guns
when a new government is trying to disarm the Chimères.

No doubt Lele is motivated by sincere concern, but there is nonetheless
something troubling about how blithely she embraces their violent ways. And
it seems that Mr. Leth shares her attitude. In spite of occasional gestures
in the direction of political or sociological context - interviews with
anti-Aristide activists, news images of battles beyond Cité Soleil - he is
not, in the end, much concerned with offering an analysis of the Haitian
situation. Like Lele, he'd rather have a party with the thugs.


GHOSTS OF CITé SOLEIL
Directed by Asger Leth; in English, Creole and French, with English
subtitles; directors of photography, Milos Loncarevic, Frederik Jacobi and
Mr. Leth; edited by Adam Nielsen; music by Wyclef Jean and Jerry Duplessis;
produced by Mikael Chr. Rieks, Tomas Radoor and Seth Kanegis; Kim
Magnusson, Cary Woods, Jorgen Leth, George Hickenlooper, Mr. Jean and Mr.
Duplessis, executive producers; released by ThinkFilm. At the IFC Center,
323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running
time: 85 minutes.