A darkly poetic evocation of the horrors of the slave trade, embodied in the voyage of one French slave ship across the Atlantic. Rather than present an array of dry facts and figures or risk trivializing history by bending it to the needs of fictitious narrative, Martiniquais filmmaker Guy Deslauriers weaves the raw material of the painful past into an evocative tapestry of images, simultaneously impressionistic and painstakingly detailed. Though firmly rooted in reality, Deslauriers's film shares with SANKOFA (1994) and ILL GOTTEN GAINS (1997) their desire to vividly evoke the experience of enslavement through bitter poetry. The titular middle passage was the centr...
Released:
2001
Rated:
n/a
Length:
78 mins