1313 West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty

[domino harvey]

Mauritanian French firebrand Med Hondo puts colonialism itself on trial in this one-of-a-kind musical spectacular—a collective effort of unprecedented scale and ambition that proved a watershed event in African cinema. Aboard an enormous mock slave ship, Hondo stages a series of imaginative reenactments and intricately choreographed dance numbers that trace the devastating effects of French imperialism across centuries of enslavement and injustice. Beyond mere extravaganza, West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty is a stirring call to Pan-African independence and a dazzling yet critical reconception of an entire people’s history of oppression and rebellion.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
New interview with African-cinema scholar Aboubakar Sanogo
Program featuring archival interviews with director Med Hondo
Excerpted archival interview with cinematographer François Catonné
Trailers
PLUS: An essay by film programmer and critic Ashley Clark

New cover by Chris Visions

[domino harvey]

Still can’t believe they buried Soleil O in a box of unrelated films but they really seem to have learned their lesson

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

Great great great film! The set is extraordinary as is the music and it delivers it’s powerful message so well

[brundlefly]

Thrilled to have this with any English-friendly extras. Though I wonder if, without a box set (which, granted, would have duplicated Soleil O), Criterion will ever consider Sarraounia for physical release.

[therewillbeblus]

I love this film. Thoughts:

I just finished this - it took me a little while to acclimate to its wavelength, but my appreciation locked completely in sync with the film's cumulative structure, as it blossomed from a more grounded, didactic history lesson into a looser but tightly-visioned eclectic palette of spectacular musical numbers, inspired set pieces, and increasingly biting satire. Its internal sense of rhythm seems intentionally constructed around formally arrhythmic content to signify its themes, including the sensations of discomfort from disruptions of expectations (on half of both victims and persecutors) that are inherent in history's unstoppable evolution containing multifaceted variables interweaving. The numbers serve to document fantasies, but also the periods where people are playing defined roles they're "comfortable" in, honing in on the value of predictability even if the circumstances themselves are far from ideal. This is a film that is hilarious and horrifying, entertaining and frustrating, and everything in between. Its shifting narrative economy and repetition of ideas worked wonders for me: Hondo demonstrates that he's not short on creative juices, and could easily have made a film with purely forward propulsion.. but his directorial wit is to reflexively issue restraint. By refusing to return to the same rote situations you're critiquing, Hondo would be indirectly be schematically transforming history into a forward march of potential and enthusiasm, a problematic consequence he avoids with attentive film grammar. The regressive elements of its composition help earn its frustration, the kind many of us feel on a macro level as we watch history repeat itself. The final musical number reads as less of a delusion to me, and more of a statement that aligns the internal logic of the Musical Number with the necessity and impenetrability of a cultural spirit of hope. The community and its ethos will always retain a forcefield to imperialism, existing in a vacuum divorced from a level of corporeal threat. The optimistic of intragroup empowerment sits side by side with the pessimism of intergroup relations.

This is an easy contender for both a Musicals list and the 70s project, and I hope the new restoration gets released ASAP, ideally with academic extras

[pistolwink]

Brilliant film. I hope some of the extra comprise a bit of a history lesson, since I suspect one is necessary to get the details about French/Francophone colonialism (and post-colonialism).