May 17, 1996

The Man by the Shore


She cries out in protest.

So begins "The Man by the Shore," the Raoul Peck film that opens Friday. The setting is Haiti in the 1960s, during the tyrannical regime of Francois Duvalier, the dictator whose titles included President for Life and the falsely fatherly Papa Doc.

But the setting could be Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Trujillo's Dominican Republic, Idi Amin's Uganda, Saddam Hussein's Iraq or any of a thousand of history's hells on earth.

The narrowly focused story told by Peck achieves its universality by magnifying the impact of oppression on one family. By so doing, "The Man by the Shore" restores the details of humanity that can be so easily lost in well-meaning but remote references to violations of human rights.

The formative scene witnessed by the little girl, Sarah, introduces a story narrated by her older self that unfolds bit by bit some 30 years later. "To throw away is to forget," a voice sings early in the film. "To pick up is to remember."

Written and directed by Peck, "The Man by the Shore" eventually reveals Sarah to be one of three children left with her grandmother when their father, a military officer too weak to control the brutality of Duvalier's henchmen, the Tontons Macoutes, fled with his wife.

For a time, the girls are sheltered in a convent, but even that holy place is violated by Janvier, the leader of the local Tonton militia. So the children return to their grandmother, a proud shopkeeper whose defiance can only provoke men like Janvier, whose misuse of authority, volatile temper and penchant for violence make him the ideal functionary.

Peck, a Haitian-born film maker reared in exile in Zaire and trained in film in Germany, conveys menace in masterly fashion. When a jeepload of Tontons rolls down a street, the scene is freighted with tension, even as the sun shines brightly on pastel doorways, promising hope to the hopeless.

The writer-director, whose previous credits include "Lumumba: Death of a Prophet" and who has held film faculty positions in France and at New York University, has cast "The Man by the Shore" expertly.

Sarah, played by Jennifer Zubar, whose early loss of innocence makes her so guarded and serious, becomes all the more heartbreaking when she flashes a rare smile. Her grandmother is portrayed with immense dignity and strength by Toto Bissainthe. Patrick Rameau evokes horror and sympathy as Sorel, the limping, deranged ruin left after the beating witnessed by the young Sarah. And Jean-Michel Martial, as the vicious, corrupt Janvier, embodies the physical strength and banality of personality that so often combine in the eager evil underling.

Democracy, for the time being, has returned to Haiti, where Peck is now minister of culture. But somewhere today there is another Sarah who validates Peck's film.


This film is not rated.

Directed and written (in Creole, with English subtitles) by Raoul Peck; director of photography, Armand Marco; edited by Jacques Comets; music by Amos Coulanges and Dominique Dejean; production designer, Gilles Aird; produced by Pascal Verroust; released by KJM3 Entertainment Group. Running time: 106 minutes.

Jennifer Zubar (Sarah), Toto Bissainthe (Grand-mere Desrouillere), Jean-Michel Martial (Janvier) and Patrick Rameau (Gracieux/Sorel).

Showtimes and tickets from 777-FILM Online



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