Title
Up through the cracks: Raoul Peck’s Moloch Tropical and the ghosts of Haitian history
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Department/School
African American Studies
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.
Link to Published Version
Recommended Citation
Pressley-Sanon, T. (2015). Up through the cracks: Raoul Peck’s Moloch Tropical and the ghosts of Haitian history. Cultural Dynamics, 27(3), 313–339. doi:10.1177/0921374014557530