Up through the cracks: Raoul Peck’s Moloch Tropical and the ghosts of Haitian history

Abstract

This article uses spatial metaphors that also hold political and cultural currency in Haiti as a lens through which to read Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s 2009 feature film Moloch Tropical’s depictions of, and reflections and comments on Haiti’s socio-political and economic structures historically and contemporarily. The article posits that the film is very much about the ghosts of unresolved histories haunting the present. Through a reading of the gradual degeneration of the principle character, Jean de Dieu Théogène’s façade of control, the article argues that Peck uses the film as a pwen to not only expose past and current Haitian leaders’ usage of violence in the maintenance of power, but warn future ones against the practice.

Keywords

film Haiti Raoul Peck

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ali

(2010) The king is dead. The Caribbean Review of Books, 24 November. Available at: http://caribbeanreviewofbooks.com/crb-archive/24-november-2010/the-king-is-dead/

Aristide

(1990) In the Parish of the Poor (edited and translated by Wilentz

). Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

Assistance Mortelle (Mortal Assistance) (2013) Peck

(Director). Velvet Film.

Averill

(1997) A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in Haiti. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.

Bell

(2004) Mine of stones: with and without the spirits along the Cordon de l’Ouest. Harper’s Magazine, January, 56–66.

Bellegarde-Smith

(2004) The Breached Citadel. Toronto, ON, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press.

Blot

J-V

(2012) The November 28, 2010 elections: another catastrophe for Haiti. In: Schuller

Morales

(eds) Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press, 195–198.

Braziel

(2003) Profit and nothing but! (Le Profit et rien d’autre!): Raoul Peck’s impolite thoughts on the (Haitian diasporic) class struggle. Journal of Haitian Studies 9(2): 141–176.

Braziel

(2008) Artists, Performers, and Black Masculinity in the Haitian Diaspora. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

10.

Braziel

(2010) Duvalier’s Ghosts: Race, Diaspora, and U.S. Imperialism in Haitian Literatures. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

11.

Caruth

(1996) Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.

12.

Daniel

(2014) Director Raoul Peck starts production on earthquake drama in Haiti. Associated Press, 12 April. Available at: http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/director-raoul-peck-starts-production-on-earthquake-drama-in-haiti-1.1773193

13.

Deibert

(2005) Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti. New York: Seven Stories Press.

14.

D’Adesky

A-C

(1995) Père Lebrun in context. In: McFadyen

LaRamée

(eds) Haiti: Dangerous Crossroads. Boston, MA: South End Press, 175–180.

15.

Dubois

(2012) Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

16.

Dunkel

(trans.) (2004) Aristide: The people’s candidate –operation Lavalas barricades the road against the macoutes. In: Chin

. (eds) Haiti: A Slave Revolution: 200 Years After 1804. New York: International Action Center, 127–132.

17.

Farmer

(2004) Who removed Aristide? London Review of Books 26(8): 28–31. Available at: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n08/paul-farmer/who-removed-aristide (accessed 9 January 2014).

18.

Flynn

Salek

(2012) Introduction. In: Flynn

Salek

(eds) Screening Torture: Media Representations of State Terror and Political Domination. New York: Columbia University Press, 1–18

19.

Foucault

(1983) Afterword: the subject and power. In: Dreyfus

Rabinow

(eds) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 208–228.

20.

Foucault

(1997) What our present is. In: Lotringer

Hotchcroth

(eds) The Politics of Truth. Los Angeles, CA: Semitext(e), interview with Andre Berten, 147–168.

21.

Gallagher

(2008) Foucault, power and participation. International Journal of Children’s Rights 16(3): 395–406. Available at: www.childhoodstudies.ed.ac.uk/research/MGallagher.doc (accessed 9 January 2014).

22.

Haiti Libre (2010) Haiti-Social: Raoul Peck is pessimistic for the future. Haiti Libre, 14 September. Available at: http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-1178-haiti-social-raoul-peck-is-pessimistic-for-the-future.html

23.

Haitian Corner (1998) Peck

(Director) (2013) Velvet Film.

24.

Hurbon

(1995) Voodoo: Search for the Spirit (trans. Frankel

). New York: Harry Abrams, Inc.

25.

I’Homme sur le Quais (The Man by the Shore (1993) Peck

(Director)(2013) Velvet Film.

26.

Ives

(1995) Haiti’s second occupation. In: McFadyen

LaRamée

(eds) Haiti: Dangerous Crossroads. Boston: South End Press, 107–118.

27.

Ives

(2004) Class analysis of a crisis. In: Chin

Dunkel

Flounders

. (eds) Haiti: A Slave Revolution: 200 Years After 1804. New York: International Action Center, 187–191.

28.

Ives

(2010) “Moloch Tropical” by Raoul Peck: a Venomous Farce. Le Monde du Sud/Elsie News. Available at: http://elsie-news.over-blog.com/article-moloch-farcical-exiled-aristide-as-haitian-hitler-111042292.html

29.

James

CLR

(1989) The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage Books.

30.

Khan

(2011) What does the future hold for Haiti? Al Jazeera, 22 March. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rizkhan/2011/03/201132192812248847.html

31.

McCarthy Brown

(1996) Art and resistance: Haiti’s political murals, October 1994 (Special issue: arts of Vodou). African Arts 29(2): 46–57+102.

32.

Macherey

(1978) A Theory of Literary Production (trans. Wall

). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

33.

Megahey

(2010) Moloch Tropical. Cinema Review. Available at: http://film.thedigitalfix.com/content/id/72467/moloch-tropical.html

34.

Moloch Tropical (2009) Peck R (Director). Velvet Film. Available at: http://www.ambafrance-ht.org/IMG/pdf/1Moloch-tropical_Toronto.pdf?425/b8c531a6d23b98ebba6773cb8d534272a3283a8a

35.

Peck

(2005) Introduction. In: Deibert

(ed.) Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti. New York: Seven Stories Press, xv–xix.

36.

Peck

Taylor

(1996) Autopsy of terror. Transition 69: 236–246.

37.

Petty

(2008) Contact Zones: Memory, Origin, and Discourses in Black Diasporic Cinema. Detroit, MI: Wayne University Press.

38.

Pierre-Pierre

(1996) At lunch with: Raoul Peck; Exporting Haitian culture to the world. New York Times, 8 May. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/08/garden/at-lunch-with-raoul-peck-exporting-haitian-culture-to-the-world.html (accessed 7 February 2014).

39.

Rey

Richman

(2010) The somatics of syncretism: tying body and soul in Haitian religion. Studies in Religion 39(9): 379–403.

40.

Richman

(2005) Migration and Vodou. Gainseville, FL: University Press of Florida.

41.

Smith

(2001) When the Hands Are Many: Community Organization and Social Change in Rural Haiti. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

42.

Sprague

(2010) Michel Martelly, stealth duvalierist. Haiti Libète, vol.4, issue 22, 15–22 December. Available at: http://www.haiti-liberte.com/archives/volume4-22/MichelMartelly_Stealth_Duvalierist.asp

43.

Sydney Film Festival (2010) “Moloch Tropical”—meet the filmmaker. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA-vwR_sCsQ (accessed 9 January 2014).

44.

Sylvain

(2012) Martelly’s election: shades of populism and authoritarian rule. In: Schuller

Morales

(eds) Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press, 204–207.

45.

Trouillot

(1990a) Haiti State against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism. New York: Monthly Review Press.

46.

Trouillot

(1990b) The odd and the ordinary: Haiti, the Caribbean and the world. Cimarron 2(3): 3–12.

47.

Trouillot

(1994) Haiti’s nightmare and the lessons of history. NACLA Report on the Americas 27(4): 121–132.

48.

Trouillot

(1995) Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

49.

Vernant

(2013) Moloch Tropical (Director by Raoul Peck, 6 films). Paris: Institut Français.

50.

Weisbrot

Johnston

(2012) Haiti’s fatally flawed election. In: Schuller

Morales

(eds) Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press, 199–203.