Nèg maron

Well, this movie is many things : the story of a friendship, the story of inequalities in a society still bleeding from the wounds of slavery, the story of a mother's trial to raise her family.... So many things that all cannot be listed here. However, the interesting thing is to discover two young singers from the island of Guadeloupe (French West-Indies) making their film debut in a very convincing way. Both Daly and Admiral T are touching, moving and also entertaining. They bring to screen the spirit of French west-Indian youth with it's current state of mind, it's boredom mixed with suppressed anger and also imagination... The story is one of a struggle, the struggle of growing up first as a man, then as a family... The wonderful scenery is very poetic but it's also quite realistic in the portrayal of poor areas and of the life people lead in it. The one very interesting feature of the film is that the dialogues are mainly in French-based creole language (same creole spoken in French Guyana, Martinique and also St.Lucia for example) and it is rare enough to be of interest. IT's a language created by slaves for themselves and it is only now that the people who speak become proud of it to the extent of putting it forward in films. This is the first film with creole dialogues that will reach an African-Caribbean community scattered over the world since the film is in theaters in Paris as well as in Guadeloupe, Martinique or French Guyana so far... If you are interested in the lives of Black people in the French Caribbean islands this is definitely the film for you.