Aristide & The Endless Revolution
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: B- Documentary: B
Imagine a
country with an all-Black population that participates in a democratically-held
election and overwhelmingly elects a man they believe will serve them in their
best interest. This kind of popular
uprising without violence should not be a problem for a country that touts its
unconditional support of freedom.
However, when it is a poor country like Haiti, The United States does not
somehow think this is a good idea. In
the case of Republicans in power, they do not like the idea of the success and
legacy of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Nicolas Rossier’s documentary Aristide & The Endless Revolution
(2005) shows how he has been thrown out of power a few times because his
country was in the “wrong” hemisphere.
The
short-but-powerful 82 minutes are loaded with all kinds of film and video
footage, interviews with name persons, people from the country of Haiti and even counterpoints-of-view by
former U.S. government strategists who portray Aristide in the worst
possible light. However, the documentary
again and again shows that how he was being painted did not (and still does
not) gel with reality. President Bill
Clinton put him back in power, only to have the second President Bush shove him
out again. Though the Haitian situation
is an outrage, the deeper point of this work extends to global U.S. politics and shows that America is not doing the best it could be
in handling foreign policy at the least.
That does not even take into account a certain kind of globally set
version of institutionalized racism, but Rossier sticks with the subject and
even when his work is over, you know the story is far from it.
The
letterboxed 1.78 X 1 image is color weak and much of the footage looks a
generation down, making the colors look patchy and off. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is simple stereo at
best and sometimes nearly monophonic.
Extras include a resources/links section, text timeline, text director
bio, separate text interviews with director Rossier & Economist Alex Dupuy
and extended interview footage with Aristide.
- Nicholas Sheffo
