LOVELY FILM ON HAITI

We've reached the silly season again, the time of action roller coasters, so it's worth the trouble to seek out alternatives.

The best I've found unfortunately, it won't be widely available -- is The Man by the Shore, a beautifully composed memory film on Haiti in the early 1960s, seen through the eyes of an 8-year-old girl, Sarah (Jennifer Zubar). Her parents have been forced into exile even though her father, an army officer (Francois Latour), had first tried to collaborate with the Duvalier regime. Through most of the movie Sarah and her sisters are living in hiding, protected by her grandmother, Mme. Desrouilliere (Toto Bisanthe), who wants to get them safely out of the country.

The situation seems to promise simple-minded political sermonizing, but The Man by the Shore is rewardingly complex, subtly evocative and surprisingly restrained. Although there is a growing sense of danger as we observe the lawlessness of the local Macoute boss, Janvier (Jean-Michel Martial), director Raoul Peck downplays physical horror.

The film is all the more emotionally powerful because it is personal, narrated by an older Sarah trying to piece together fragments of the past: the rich details of her grandmother's attic, the brutal beating she observes from a window, the birthday party at which both her father and godfather, Gracieux (Patrick Rameau), sing to her. The connection between all the flashbacks only becomes clear at the end, but it's a movie I wouldn't mind seeing again; there'd be things I missed the first time.

Peck made the movie in the Dominican Republic because he began work on it before Aristide returned to Haiti as president; today he is minister of culture under Aristide's successor.

The deserted street, the shuttered houses, the objects in the grandmother's store and the way characters shift back and forth from French to Creole show Peck's concern to record Haitian reality, but there is always an atmosphere of mystery. Sarah sometimes seems unsure whether or not what happened was only a bad dream, and Jennifer Zubar captures the mercurial nature of a girl's moods, shifting from observant to playful to frightened. We worry as she endures an interrogation from the brutal Janvier and share a lyrical moment as she goes biking in the countryside with a girl she's just made friends with.

In addition to the remarkable performance of its central character, The Man by the Shore benefits from the commanding presence of Bisanthe, an icon of dignified resistance as the no-nonsense grandmother. Rameau is equally memorable as Gracieux, who hobbles through most of the movie, crying out wildly for the victims of the Tontons Macoute. Sarah's most painful memory is of her father ordering her to get out of the car as he brings Gracieux to military headquarters.

Haiti's Catholicism is firmly established in the background. Sarah is first sheltered in a convent, where the sister superior confronts the insolent Janvier with courage and where people with opposing allegiances attend Mass together. It was shocking but historically correct to hear the priest at Mass announcing the Vatican's approval of a close alliance with the regime then in power; what seemed inaccurate was to make this announcement a prelude to the congregation's coming up to the altar, presumably to receive communion.

The Man by the Shore is a good example of a poetic film that is far from escapist, Peck does not want to soften the painful past of his country -- the horror has to be part of the record. What makes it bearable, however, are its powerful images of dignity and humanity that help us understand how Haiti's people have survived.

Joseph Cunneen, National Catholic Review, July 12, 1996