"Le gang des Antillais" by Jean-Claude Barny

I'm one of the people who went to see Le Gang des Antillais [international title: “Gang of the Caribbean”] when it came out on November 30th of 2016 in France ... It's been about ten years since I've been surrounded by West Indian people my age, so I admit I felt a twinge of sadness when I felt that pre-screening atmosphere that I hadn't felt since I was a teenager. This feeling of being on the verge of sharing an experience with a whole group of people without having to explain or even justify who you are is just... I digress. Let's go back to the “Gang of the Caribbean”.

I might as well say it right now, I didn't get hooked at all (and I'll explain why) BUT I paid to go see this film, I took a friend with me and I recommend everyone to go and see it for three reasons:

1) to make up your own mind

2) to support a Caribbean production

3) to support French Afrocaribbean productions as a whole

We have yet reached the point where we can afford to be picky. Maybe the current emulation will bear fruit in 10 years and there will be regular films with Black people on French screens so that we can afford not to go and see them all. For the moment, this isn’t the case, so I support French Caribbean films as much as I can.

I'm not writing this review right after seeing the film because I wanted to give myself time to think about why I didn’t like it right away. It took me some time to verbalize it, but I finally found out why. Whether it's for “Nég' Maron”, “Tropiques Amers” or “Rose et le soldat”, I remain hermetic to Jean-Claude Barny's style. His works for me have the paradox of having a direct style, simple to understand, but the story on the screen remains only in the suggestion of a deeper and more exciting story. In fact, what I find frustrating is to feel that the most interesting things in his films are in the scenes that are edited out of the final version... His cinema doesn't speak to me. I'm not the target audience for the entertainment aspect of his art, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy other aspects.

A thriller with no thrill

90 minutes. It’s a short period of time when the plot moves at full speed. It's a long period of time when you're not hooked. The film is categorized as a thriller, but I didn't find anything particularly thrilling. Since you already know the end of the plot, it's all about how the situation unfolds to reach the grand finale. “Le Gang des Antillais” isn’t a heist movie, of course, but I didn't feel any sense of urgency or countdown. We don't even know how many robberies there were, how much was "really" stolen, for how long did their mission last (1 week? 1 month? 6 months?). It was probably a choice to stay on an even level of tension from beginning to end or I really missed the moments when the tension went to a higher level. Again, it may have been a matter of editing, but the dialogue gave me the impression that the characters were explaining at length already clear actions. On the opposite, some scenes would have deserved to be more explicit. For example, the presence of the independentists or even just the books Jimmy reads while in jail, these scenes are meaningless for those who don't have a minimum of intellectual baggage on the subject.

So it's not the story of robberies but the story of the robbers. And each robber has a strong personal story, but not much highlighted... Sometimes dispatched in a voice-over and one-sentence explanation. It may be my Vincent Vermignon fangirl heart talking, but the character of Liko had so much potential to be bigger. I wanted to say that. #iaintsorry. On the contrary, Molokoy (Adama Niane) and Politik (Eriq Ebouaney ♥♥) had such intensity that I was completely captivated, even though we know almost nothing about their pre-gang life background. Jimmy (Djedje Apali) is the perfect hero and never deviates from what is expected of the perfect hero.

Women, I love you, but…

I had already said it for “Nèg Maron”. JC Barny’s female characters are one-dimensional and exist only as a foil for the male characters. And I leave aside the debate on the beauty standard that the cinema conveys when it comes to Black women, whether for little girls, teenagers or elders. It's tough for me, but I leave it aside.

If we are only to talk about the characterization of female characters, the potomitan [t/n: the pillar woman] figure who sacrifices herself for everyone and whose life only has meaning through men… I’m fine with it. But there's nothing wrong with showing also a Black female character who thrives without making it about a man and/or her children. Just look at the poster. It completely sums up the place of women in this film. You can try to show me that the female characters of the “Gang of the Caribbean” aren’t used as a foil, but let's agree to disagree (1) right now.

Lokal Color

There's one thing we can't criticize Jean-Claude Barny for: his art of lokalization. He knows how to bring to the screen the visual and artistic identity of the (French-speaking) Caribbean by sublimating clichés. Of course, there’s the easy way: the opening credits (well edited, by the way) with a mix of archive images. There’s also the originality of showing scenes only in Kréyòl (even if we can debate on the fact that this language is always used to talk about struggle and never to talk about love). The highlight of the lokalization is the music. I may have been less convinced by the choice of contemporary songs, but the original soundtrack is really good. For me, the best mark of lokalization is the long flashback sequence of the cockfight as a spun metaphor to represent Jimmy's struggle. You can't get more lokal than that.

A Bit of Politik

The only interesting point I see in the Gang of the Caribbean is its raison d'être. Its release in the current context is all the more symbolic. Having said that, it is true that the political message is quite complex. There’s an effort of contextualization (unlike in “Rose and the Soldier”, #justsaying), but the historical references still remain disconnected from the reality that the film seems to want to show. I mean, apart from the archive footage at the beginning, the film talks a lot about what is wrong or what was wrong in the lives of the Bumidomians but doesn't show it. The screenwriters created the link between the independentists and the action of the gang. Was it necessary to make this link? Honestly, I don't think so, but I understand why they wanted to make this connection. Opportunities to talk about it are too rare. No viewer can leave the room without knowing that the French government orchestrated the presence of the Caribbeans in continental France. No viewer can leave the room without knowing that there was a struggle for independence in the French West Indies barely a generation ago. Will he/she know the life of this first generation living in France in the 60s and 70s? Will he/she know why there was (was) a struggle? It is less certain, but that was not the purpose of the film...

Goal: to rehabilitate the Black man?

“Le Monde Afrique” (#icwyd) uses this sentence to promote the interview of Jean-Claude Barny and Sebastien Onomo put online on November 30th. I leave aside my feminist remarks (1). In any case, as far as the image of the black man is concerned, the Gang gives him a voice that he uses to shout out his disappointment and despair. The film offered several possible approaches: the birth of the gang, the grand robbery period, the post-robbery period. Personally, I was more interested in the meeting between the gang members and on the way to trusting each other, on creating this sense of brotherhood. All this is summarized in a few sentences in a voice over at the beginning of the film to get to the heart of a subject we already know the ins and outs of. In fact, that's it. The film is without surprise, says a lot of things about several important themes without ever really settling down to show this life that the characters don't want anymore.

Honestly, we all hope that the film will be a precursor to tell other stories, in other genres on these completely unexplored themes. Given the thrill that electrified the atmosphere during the first thirty minutes of the film or during the lyrical flights of Politik, it is undeniable that the audience is receptive and wants to hear his story, what his parents went through and what he will be able to show his children. Each story can carry universal values that everyone can identify and even relate to. Yes, yes, try it and you’ll see.