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

The Citadel and the ghosts of Haitian history

Moloch Tropical was filmed at the Citadel Laferrière, King Henri Christophe’s (1807–1820) magnificent fort that stands just outside the town of Milot in northern Haiti, visible from his palace named Sans Souci further down the mountain. The film covers the final two days of Théogène’s doomed presidency in which he has invited leaders from around the world to celebrate the nation’s bicentennial. However, his plans fall apart when almost everyone cancels. Angry about how he is being portrayed in the media, Théogène has had a popular radio reporter, Gérald Francis, abducted and tortured in the cellar below the fort that he uses as his palace. Against the backdrop of popular protests broadcast on television, calls for new elections by the intelligentsia on the radio, and abandonment by the international community, Théogène is portrayed as corrupt and womanizing, petty and power-hungry. At the film’s end, he and his family drive away from the palace as protestors storm it.

Although there are any number of comparisons to be made with several Haitian leaders whose reigns ended either in death or exile (as we see with Théogène), I will discuss just a few here. There is Toussaint Louverture who led the enslaved masses of Saint Domingue toward revolution, but was kidnapped by the French in 1802, leaving Jean-Jacques Dessalines to secure victory in 1804. Henri Christophe ruled northern Haiti from 1807 to 1820 when he committed suicide as an angry mob descended on his palace. François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, once a country doctor, rose to power in 1957 and remained securely ensconced in the palace until his death in 1971. Heir to the presidency following the death of his father, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier continued with many of his father’s political tactics and was exiled following popular protests in 1986. Finally, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, often compared to Toussaint, is a former priest and liberation theologist who was swept into power by popular vote in 1990 and again in 2000. It was during his second term in office that it seems that he lost popular confidence. In 2004, while elaborate plans were being made to celebrate the nation’s bicentennial with invited international guests, protests erupted and in February, Aristide was flown out of the country on an American military plane.

History’s hauntings

In its exploration of Haiti’s multiple haunting histories, Moloch Tropical attends to what psychoanalyst Cathy Caruth (1996: 4) argues is at the heart of Sigmund Freud’s writing on trauma. More than a pathology or the simple illness of a wounded psyche, trauma is always the story of a wound that cries out, that addresses us in the attempt to tell us of a reality or truth that is not otherwise available. This truth in its delayed appearance and its belated address cannot be linked only to what is known, but also to what remains unknown in our actions and our language. The reliving of a trauma that has been suppressed is one where someone (or a collective group) unwittingly reenacts an event that cannot be left behind. Even in the burying or exile, if the trauma is not addressed, then the referential—in this case, the repeated betrayal of the masses by those who were positioned to lead them through the use of ideological, economic, political, and physical violence—will repeatedly resurface. Again, history is ever-present when issues are not resolved.

This unresolved history that is ever-present and the idea of the repeated enactment of trauma by those who have suffered problematizes Foucault’s notion of a “free subject.” They beg the question, “how can one be considered free when historical traumas are left unaddressed?” Peck attends to the hidden and suppressed traumas’ repeated resurfacing through the film’s narrative action, bringing them into the open. He also does so through the mise-en-scène where at several key moments in the narrative the camera draws the viewer’s attention to the ancient and original jagged rough-hewn structure of the Citadel’s irruption through the smooth and sophisticated exterior that has been created contemporarily. These moments represent a violent history breaking through yet again, to haunt and impact the present. In his combination of narrative and visual exposé Peck explores the way these suppressed histories inevitably surface to haunt those who profit and perish from their silencing, thus troubling the idea of free will. Peck’s pwen also reaches back to the nation’s distant and recent histories and memories to reflect and comment on Haiti’s troubled socio-political past and present, to send a message to not only the gwo nègs who exercise power within Haiti’s borders, but also those outside, that things must change. At the same time, reflecting a dialectical approach to his filmmaking, Peck also directs his pwen at the ti nègs of Haiti, calling them out for their complicity in their exploitation.

Peck has written quite pointedly about the different actors in Haiti’s continued crisis. About the upheaval following the 2004 ouster of Aristide, he proclaimed,

We Haitians as a whole do share responsibility for the current mess. But we are not alone in this responsibility. The international community is an important actor as well. After many years of disappointing involvement and halfhearted support, as well as patent political miscalculation, they bear their own share of the debacle. (Peck, 2005: xix)

He also implicated the international community in Haiti’s potential to move beyond the crisis, arguing that it had a unique opportunity “to be more discerning and consistent in its approach to our problems” (Peck, 2005: xix). ⁵ In his use of the possessive pronoun, “our,” he implicates not only the Haitian elite and the majority poor, but also the Haitian diaspora in the mess that he identifies.

Peck has also written about the international community’s complicity with what he sees as Aristide’s predatory practices, wondering why representatives of the American Congress called for the deposed leader’s return. He has also cited both American government and private businesses in Aristide’s ability to maintain power for as long as he did. Finally, he has implicated the millions of Haitians who “placed their destiny in the hands of Father Aristide in 1990 and again in 1994” for what he characterizes as the success of Aristide’s “legacy of lies, intolerance, corruption, nepotism and conspiracy to eliminate his rival and detractors” (Peck, 2005: xvii) with US support.

But Aristide is not the only one with close ties to the American government. Haiti’s current president, Michel Martelly, whom several human rights advocates have claimed was put into office by the United States ⁶ with the support of the international military force that now occupies the country (MINUSTAH), has long-time ties with the despotic Duvaliers. ⁷ When Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti in 2011, he was promptly ensconced in a villa in the hills of Port-au-Prince and his son was given a job as a consultant to the president. On the 1-year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated the nation, millions watched as former US president Bill Clinton commiserated with Jean-Claude at Titanyen, the site where many who died during the quake were buried, but also one of the favorite dumping grounds of the Tonton Macoutes, the paramilitary group formed by François Duvalier and kept in place by his son.

From Louverture to Aristide

The divide between the elite class and the masses can be found as far back as Toussaint, who, in 1801, declared himself governor-for-life of Saint Domingue while enforcing a repressive labor system that Haitian historians baptized caporalisme agraire (“military agriculture”; Trouillot, 1990a: 43). He did so because he hoped to incorporate Saint Domingue into the global economy. But by forcing the men and women who had fought to the death for their freedom back into conditions that resembled slavery without explaining himself, Toussaint allowed the masses to think that their old enemies were being favored at their expense. As historian and social theorist C.L.R. James (1989) explains, “in allowing himself to be looked upon as taking the side of the Whites against the Blacks, Toussaint committed the unpardonable crime in the eyes of a community where the Whites stood for so much evil” (p. 284). Consequently, according to Trouillot (1990a), when the French took him into custody, “the masses remained indifferent” (p. 43), attributable to their sense of betrayal by their “papa.”

Anthropologist Paul Farmer (2004) notes that “many Haitians saw Aristide as a modern Toussaint l’Ouverture, a comparison that Aristide did not discourage.” In a January issue of Harpers Magazine, Bell (2004) compared their fates saying, “Toussaint was undone by foreign powers and Aristide also had suffered plenty of vexation from outside interference” (p. 64). It would seem that a political scenario similar to that of Toussaint’s played itself out over a 10-year period from the time of Aristide’s initial return to Haiti from exile in 1994 on condition that he accept the international community’s imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that effectively crippled the Haitian economy until the day of his second exile in February 2004. Describing the scene on the day of his return to Haiti in October 1994, journalist and human rights activist Kim Ives (1995) states,

In the middle of it all sat Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a small figure in a regal chair in a bullet-proof glass cage, exhibited for the crowds like an animal in a zoo … After three years and fifteen days in exile, President Aristide was finally back in Haiti but surrounded, in every sense by the putschist Haitian military and the occupying U.S. forces. (p. 107)

According to Bellegarde-Smith (2004), when Aristide, flanked by American officials, announced his agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, one peasant woman mused, “The World Bank and IMF plans do not sound too good for us. Titid [Aristide] says they must be good but he says it surrounded by many tall Americans. I wonder if he wants us to object” (pp. 251–252). While Aristide’s position, like that of Toussaint over 200 years before him, “was extraordinarily difficult,” (James, 1989: 287) the fact that, like Toussaint, he did not (or could not) communicate his intentions to the woman—representative as she is of the masses who put him power—means that she was left to draw her own conclusions.

In 2000, after a popular majority elected him for a second term, Aristide was again in a difficult situation, faced with trying to temper the Haitian elite and the United States’ distrust of him. As such, according to Ives (2004), Aristide attempted “to sell himself to Washington as the intermediary who could control and reign in the explosive underclass in exchange for a few crumbs from the ruling class table” (p. 188). He wielded his power by periodically inciting the poor to violence and then calming them down (Ives, 2004: 188). At the same time, he wanted to reassure the United States and Haitian ruling classes by integrating businessmen and former Duvalierists into leading positions in his government. As such, his party, Lavalas, used its position to sell off state industries as well as Haitian territory for trade-free zones, crack down on union organizers, and acquiesce “to treaties that allowed unilateral U.S. penetration of Haitian territory” (Ives, 2004: 188). Pèp la, the people, felt betrayed. Consequently, like the ancient masses who felt betrayed by Toussaint and thus “remained indifferent” to his kidnapping by the French centuries before, the masses felt betrayed by Aristide and consequently “remained indifferent” to his claim that he was kidnapped by the Americans in 2004 during the second coup d’état that sent him into exile. ⁸ Aristide, grasping the way that history was repeating itself on one level, invoked the memory of Toussaint, who, as he was being arrested in 1802 pronounced the famous words, “In overthrowing me, you have cut down in San Domingo only the trunk of the tree of black liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep.” Aristide both echoed and summoned Toussaint’s ghost in saying, “I declare in overthrowing me they have uprooted the trunk of the tree of peace, but it will grow back because the roots are l’Ouverturian,” as he took leave of the Congolese government that had sheltered him following his removal from Haiti (Farmer, 2004).

Aristide’s pronouncement was a pwen, a warning to both the elite class and the international community that the war was not over and they had not won the battle. Like several leaders before him, Aristide is well versed in the art of throwing pwens and has demonstrated his proficiency on numerous occasions. Anthropologist Karen E. Richman (2005: 29) notes that when he became a last-minute presidential candidate in the 1990 elections, he applied his masterful command of Kreyòl oratory, including throwing pwens, in his speeches among the diaspora population. He used his gift for oratory expression and his history as a priest in the slums of Port-au-Prince to galvanize support throughout his presidencies. Thus, it is fitting that Peck would use a similar tactic to comment on his abuse of the practice to attain and maintain power among the disfranchised masses.

Christophe’s Sans Souci and the Citadel

In choosing the Citadel Laferrière as the setting for his film about a contemporary presidential crisis, Peck draws attention to not only the long and painful history of corruption and brutality that has characterized Haiti’s political arena since the nation’s inception but a particular history that is inextricably tied to the fort; that of the violence on which Christophe’s rule was predicated and by which he died in 1820.

In Silencing the Past, Trouillot (1995) explains that Sans Souci, Christophe’s personal residence, visible from the Citadel, means “without worry” or “carefree” (p. 36). Some may believe that “the expression aptly describes Christophe himself, or at least the side of him that sought relaxation and the easy life of Sans Souci (Trouillot, 1995: 36). But Trouillot offers another reading of Sans Souci that few know and still fewer others would volunteer; that is that Sans Souci is also the name of a man who was killed by Henri Christophe himself: Jean-Baptiste Sans Souci, a Bossale slave, probably from the Congo who played an important part in the Haitian Revolution from its inception in 1791. In the revolutionary army, he was one of Christophe’s subordinates. However, following the success of the revolution, he contested the new hierarchy, especially refusing to continue to serve under Christophe whom he considered a traitor. When he finally agreed to enter into negotiations with the new leaders to join the ranks, he was invited to Christophe’s headquarters on the Grand Pré plantation with a small guard. Once there, Christophe’s soldiers killed him and his men. Christophe later built Sans Souci, the palace, a few yards from—if not exactly where—he killed Sans Souci, the man. As Trouillot (1995: 65) speculates, more than likely, the king was engaged in a transformative ritual to absorb, but also lay to rest the ghost that haunted him. However, it would seem that Sans Souci the man’s ghost refuses to be laid to rest. Though he is buried and presumed forgotten under Sans Souci the palace, the manner by which Christophe met his demise can be read as Sans Souci the man taking his revenge on the one who betrayed him. This kind of betrayal and covering up spread from Christophe’s personal space and interactions to his entire rule exemplified in his forcing some of the same men and women who had fought valiantly for their freedom back to the plantation and others to build the Citadel, a herculean task without the benefit of modern technology. According to the oral tradition, anyone who died in the process of building the fort was simply buried within it. Thus, the bricks are literally held together with the blood and bones of the people who were enslaved to the project. Perhaps their spirits, too, haunt the structure.

Following a stroke that left him partly debilitated, Christophe’s soldiers were emboldened to organize a conspiracy to overthrow him, even turning his bodyguards against him. When he sent envoys to try to negotiate with the rebellion leaders, they countered with the statement that “the people ‘had broken the chains of slavery’ and ‘would no longer have a king’” (Dubois, 2012: 85). As the angry mob surrounded him in Sans Souci, Christophe shot himself in the heart (Dubois, 2012: 85). His wife and daughter carried his body up the mountain and buried it in the center of the Citadel, thus tying his personal legacy of violence inextricably to that of the fort for which he is most famous and in turn with the nation as one of its founding fathers. Peck’s staging the film at the Citadel summons this foundational history with all of its hauntings.

From Papa Doc to Baby Doc

Many have written about the human rights abuses that Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier is alleged to have committed when he was president of Haiti. A whole new wave of allegations have surfaced since his return in 2011. ⁹ But the violence that defined Baby Doc’s reign did not begin with him. It began with his father, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who, threatened by the country’s intelligentsia, embarked on such an effective campaign of terror that by the late 1960s, as many as 80% of Haiti’s professionals had fled the country out of fear for their lives (Dubois, 2012: 353). Journalist Jean Dominique and the writers, Marie Vieux-Chauvet and Dany Laferrière are just three well-known casualties of the Duvaliers. ¹⁰

According to Trouillot (1994), Duvalier was only able to carry out his reign of terror because of the “role played by the state in Haitian history since independence.” Another factor was the US occupation that lasted from 1915 to 1934 and that left a legacy of a weakened civil society and a fortified arm of the state by centralizing power in Port-au-Prince and creating a Haitian army “specifically to fight Haitians” (Trouillot, 1994).

When Baby Doc took over as president, relations between his government and the United States improved, based on the agreement that he would not employ the same tactics of terror that his father did. However, following the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Baby Doc, like his father, began carrying out wave after wave of arrests, tortures, murders, and disappearances of those who has spoken out against his regime in previous years. Finally, the murder of three students by government militiamen during a student protest was “the people’s” last straw, spurring protestors to march in several cities, calling for his removal. After being told to do so by his spiritual leaders as well as a well-placed US official, Duvalier departed Haiti for France in a US Air Force plane, millions of dollars from the Haitian treasury safely stowed in a Swiss bank account (Dubois, 2012: 358). Although, according to Trouillot (1994), Jean-Claude’s departure was an “obvious victory for the Haitian people,” it “did not and could not mean the end of Haiti’s nightmare.” Following Jean-Claude’s departure, Duvalierism’s legacy of extremes persevered such that the Haitian masses were left with “Duvalierism without Duvalier.” ¹¹ With the election of Martelly and the return of Jean-Claude following the 2010 earthquake, there have been allegations that Duvalierism is returning with a vengeance. ¹²

The “real” in the fiction

As the film opens and the credits fade, the audience hears a woman singing a traditional Haitian song while clouds and the landscape are pictured. In each long-view wide shot of, first clouds and then clouds and the landscape, light is seen breaking through, splitting the bordering darkness. Gradually, the fog clears and the Haitian countryside is seen as day breaks. The camera rests on the Citadel as melancholic instrumental music is interrupted by what sounds like angry chanting by a mob, a scene that has played out numerous times throughout history. The next scene, however, invokes Aristide’s particular history as a priest when the viewer is taken inside the Citadel to Théogène, clad in silk monogramed pajamas fitfully sleeping in his bedroom as a fire burns in the fireplace and several candles burn beneath a life-size statue of Jesus at the cross on a wall visible in another room. His hand rests on a Bible open to a passage on the bed. The room around him is shrouded in darkness and what seem to be ancient tomes sit on the night table beside him. As soon as he awakens he looks to the crucified Jesus and makes a sign of the cross. Théogène’s opulent surrounding is a far cry from his humble beginnings as a priest in the slums of Port-au-Prince and an advocate for the poor. The scene provides the first visual clues to the president’s betrayal. The message seems to be that, like Toussaint and Christophe, both former slaves, Papa Doc, once a country doctor, and especially Aristide, a former priest, he has abandoned those for whom he had vowed to speak. Nonetheless, even though distanced physically and ideologically, as the film unfolds it is clear that he, like his predecessors, uses those that he has left on the bottom and outside to maintain his power.

Aristide’s continued exercise of power over those disfranchised after he had become part of the elite class is represented in Théogène’s usage of the chimès, who under Aristide, were groups of young men described ahistorically in the foreign press as armed thugs that the president had groomed. However, Bell offers an alternate view of the young men; one that takes into account their histories of disfranchisement and outsider status. According to Bell (2004), they are “residents of Haiti’s slums, long excluded from civil society…indeed chimeras; ill fortune left them as unrealized shadows. With better luck they might have been human beings, but they weren’t” (p. 65). Such young men were, like the cockroaches of society, never supposed to surface. They were supposed to remain underground, in the shadows and if they surfaced, they were supposed to be squashed underfoot, a point to which I will return later. For the chimès, Aristide was a savior; someone who told them, “Tout moun se moun” (every man is a man). As such, they also deserved a seat at the table of plenty from which the wealthy ate every day. Although in the film they are depicted as ruthless killers, according to Bell (2004), “These were the people Aristide had originally been out to salvage” (p. 65).

Mother Theresa, a corrupt manbo (Vodou priestess) figure who is easily recognizable as “So Anne,” a close advisor to Aristide, is in charge of giving the order to the chimès gathered in one of the courtyards below to unleash their fury on the protestors outside. In issuing her directive, she quotes Dessalines’ famous pronouncement during the revolution: “Coupe tèt, brule kay” (cut their heads, burn their houses) telling them that “Some people think they can tear away the people’s democracy. We say it won’t happen. We won’t let it happen. We’ll chew their balls off.” Her quoting of Dessalines and her subsequent speech advocating ruthlessness summon the ferociousness with which Dessalines guarded Haitian independence, willing to do anything to keep it. Her linkage extends beyond that distant history to the more recent one of Papa Doc who, according to Bell (2004), “systematically associated himself with the spirit of Dessalines, as he deployed Dessalinien tactics on his own people: ruthless application of overwhelming force” (p. 64). But while Duvalier was associated with Dessalines, again, Aristide seemed more connected to Toussaint who, according to Bell (2004), “had a real distaste for useless bloodshed” (p. 64). However, in having this scene play out on behalf of a character that is at least partially patterned on Aristide, Peck depicts the former president as not only linked with the fiery spirit of Dessalines, but also with Duvalierien paranoia and violence. Moreover, although Aristide may not have been apt to make such pronouncements himself, his partisans were known for issuing the warning that “If Aristide goes, we’ll chop heads and burn houses” (Peck, 2005: xvii). Peck’s having Théogène’s spiritual advisor give the directive places its source close to the leader for whom they would carry out the gruesome deed. His staging of the source of the directive also throws into question Théogène’s seeming reluctance to take the decision to strike out against the protestors. It also illustrates that even though he does acquiesce to his press secretary, Rachel’s coaxing to unleash the chimès, as the nation’s leader, he is ultimately responsible for the young men’s actions.

Before sending the chimès out into the streets, Mother Theresa leads them in a prayer that recalls the words of Boukman Dutty, the Vodou priest who is believed to have presided over the famous Seremoni Bwa Kayiman (Bois Caïman Ceremony) that marked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution. The Haitian lwa of war, Ogou, is also invoked in her calling for the Great Master to put his sword in their right hand so that they could follow his lead into battle. In invoking these historically and spiritually violent forces in these corrupt leaders’ current battle to maintain control, Peck points to the many uses to which history and spirituality in Haiti are put. As the scene also references an earlier scene in which an intellectual on the radio asks if the revolutionary forefathers fought so that contemporary leaders could corrupt history and culture in the pursuit of their own selfish desires, it also points to the way that histories and memories are appropriated.

The brutality of Théogène’s decision to “unleash the chimès” is contrasted with the setting of the office in which he does so, which is elegantly decorated. The bookshelves are loaded with volumes, the sofa is of French design, and the walls are white and smooth. However, as Théogène paces, deciding whether to follow Rachel’s advice to, “Be fast. Strike hard” against the protestors, a remnant of the past, part of a stone column from the original structure, juts out from the floor, hip height, interrupting the smooth lines of the imported wood and furniture. The stones are physical reminders of Christophe’s brutality, for it was the extraction of labor that resembled slavery—some of which was used to build the Citadel—that was behind the protests that bore down on him and resulted in him taking his own life.

Michèle, Michaëlle, Mildred, and a wall

Scenes such as the protests that prompt Théogène’s exile would have preceded any number of dethroned despots the world over. Indeed, undoubtedly countless dictators could be imagined in Théogène’s place, watching themselves make speeches inside state buildings while fires block roads outside, men carry limp and bloodied children in their arms as pregnant and bloodied women are transported in oxcarts. However, several references are not only particular to Haiti, but to Baby Doc and Aristide, specifically, signaled by the naming of Théogène’s wife, Michaëlle. Like Michèle, the daughter of an elite family whom Baby Doc married in 1980, Michaëlle is well connected, placed to intervene on her husband’s behalf when murmurs of Théogène’s impending overthrow surface. Following her phone conversation with one of her contacts, Michaëlle informs Théogène, “They’re going to drop you,” a line that could have been spoken just as well by Michèle as by Mildred Trouillot, Aristide’s wife, a former lawyer who is also well connected. Peck’s reference to Mildred in the character of Michaëlle is just a shade removed as one of the couple’s daughters is named Michaëlle.

The composite nature of Michaëlle also comes through in the reference to Baby Doc and Michèle’s troubled relationship (the two were divorced by 1993) seen in Théogène and Michaëlle’s estrangement. It is clear that their marriage is not a happy one: when he goes to visit her in her separate bedroom and tries to move his hand under her sheet, she grabs it and forcefully tells him to stop. He never speaks civilly to her, at one point telling her not to “bust his balls” when she tries to talk with him.

The unraveling of not only Théogène’s marriage, but his political career is linked both narratively and visually in a particularly violent confrontation between him and Michaëlle in which she tells him that Washington is going to drop him and he tells her to get out. When she pushes him he topples headlong stopping just short of one of the stone columns in the middle of the floor. His unsteadiness and his near physical collision with the column as another visual and narrative reminder of the distant past is reinforced when he comes back to Michaëlle and calls her a bitch. After she walks away, he remains standing. The camera foregrounds him, his shoulders hunched, the picture of a defeated man. But in the distance, a very large chunk of the stone from the ancient structure juts up from the floor while to the right of it the bricks of the wall are broken away, signifying a structure that is resting on an unstable foundation. The scene taken together with Théogène’s political and personal degeneration throughout the film conveys the sense of the inevitability of not only his personal demise, but the demise of a corrupt political machine that keeps a select few on top and with insider access to power while the vast majority languish below and outside, maintained as such a system must be: through violence.

Bringing the outside in

The admittance of Théogène’s mother, a woman from the peasant class into the palace, not only upstairs, but into the inner sanctum of Théogène’s office, marks a major chink in the smooth façade that he has maintained. Until she arrives, most of the dialogue has been in either French or English. Carrying dried herring wrapped in a black plastic bag, a delicacy of the underclass with her, it is she who introduces Kreyòl, the language of pèp la when she demands to see the president. Even though she is the president’s mother she is an outsider to this space, kept at a distance by her own son’s guards who do not know who she is. Only when she tells the guard to summon Ti Coq, Théogène’s personal assistant and bodyguard, another outsider who has made his way inside and upstairs through his loyalty to Théogène, is she allowed to enter. Again, the scene is rife with contrasts between upstairs and downstairs, inside and outside, commenting on how the decisions in the interest of and by a select few impact the lives of the disfranchised majority who are often, not even privy to the conversations. ¹³ For example, as she makes her way toward the checkpoint she is confronted, first with soldiers with their guns held at the ready followed by the machanns. The machanns are kept in this corridor at the bottom of the mountain even though they supply the food for those at the top. This separation that simultaneously links the upper and underclass illustrates the dependency of those above on those below – in other words, the elite’s dependency on the masses for their existence. This juxtaposition is repeated when the mother later waits for Théogène in the kitchen, also housed in the underbelly of the fort, where women gut, slice, and season the meat and prepare the vegetables that will be made into delicacies for those above to consume at the celebration scheduled for that evening.

Théogène strives to suppress his personal history, which is why the guards at the front gate do not recognize his mother. It is this suppression of his humble origins that his mother refers to when she confronts him about his skin whitening. Because light skin is associated with wealth and status in a society divided by color, her question carries with it a long and heavy history of social and economic mobility or lack thereof linked to color in the nation founded on blackness. ¹⁴ Rather than deny that he has been lightening his skin, he tells her that people wait 3 months to get an appointment to which she replies, “I am not people.” Indeed, she is not “people”; she is his mother. At the same time, she is pèp la, the dark masses who remain out of sight so that those whom Théogène accuses of trying to dethrone him, the bourgeoisie, do not know of her existence. However, like the palace foundation, she refuses to remain hidden. Moreover, it is to her that he must turn when the false world that he has constructed falls apart. As both a mother and a representative of the masses, Théogène’s need to return to her alludes to the need for those who have come to power through popular support to return to them when they lose control. The fact that Théogène’s mother administers the succor that he needs even though, as she says, she is “tired, exhausted, worn out” alludes to the populous propensity to repeatedly hope that things will change, offering their support to politicians who inevitably betray them. Such behavior may be seen in the way that, even though Baby Doc has committed countless human rights abuses, a significant segment of the population—including the poor majority—welcomed him back when he returned from exile in February 2011. The same is true for Aristide who returned 1 month later.

Théogène’s mother brings the joke about the restitution to his attention. Clear about the meaning behind the so-called jokes, she warns him, “When people start joking it means they are not happy. And when they’re not happy they start smashing things.” Because Théogène’s mother remains among the masses, she has access to not only the jokes that they tell but also the meaning behind their laughter, something with which he has lost touch. She is also able to read the contemporary crisis so well because she has seen history repeat itself so many times before. Making the connection between the nation’s long history of exploitation and silencing of the poor majority, both by the elite class and the international community and sustained through violence and the person that her son has become, she remarks later in the film, “Two hundred years and nothing has changed.” Théogène’s way of dealing with the truth she tells is to banish her to the kitchen, again below, out of his sight. But though she, like the masses, is disavowed, disowned, silenced, relegated to the darkest recesses, and outside of the consideration of her son—representative of those in power—she, like the journalist Francis, continues to speak the truth, demanding to be heard.

Bringing the below above

While Théogène’s mother is banished to one part of the cellar, in another part, Francis is being tortured. The scene invokes images of Abu Ghraib, which Peck has shown Théogène watching on television earlier in the film. Ferocious dogs are seen straining against their chains while Francis cowers in a corner, a black bag over his head and his flesh torn. Abu Ghraib is summoned again when Francis is later seen being waterboarded in order to elicit a confession from him. The scene’s connections to atrocities committed “over there” thousands of miles away by American military personnel, like the film’s inspiration being Alexander Sokurov’s Moloch about Hitler, is evidence that atrocities committed in “exotic places far away” by people who do not look like “us” are, in fact, committed by “us.” Again, as Peck has remarked, it is a testament to the corrupting nature of power in its many locations and forms (Vernant, 2013: n.p.).

When Francis refuses to name the author of an article condemning Théogène, the gentility of his torturer’s dress clashes with the implicit barbarity of his actions as he is shown casually choosing a new instrument of torture. Later, as Francis lays incapacitated while his torturer reads, the former’s voice is heard over the radio in a prerecorded message:

Oil tankers came to our trashcan island to dump their morbid cargo.

One out of eight children die before the age of five

He disappointed the poor who elected him in their hearts

He disappointed the citizens who elected him at the polls

We voted for justice, he gave us terror.

We dreamed of the sun, he brought us darkness

We fought for change

He brought us death and the past.

No, guns won’t silence us, Mr. President.

No, your chimeras don’t scare us.

We are thousands.

They are alone and their days are numbered.

Did you know Mr. President that you’re on the international list of predators of liberty?

At best, you protect the murderers.

At worst, you’re directly implicated in crimes

Happy birthday, Mr. President.

Enjoy your bicentennial in your Citadel.

Although by kidnapping, torturing, and eventually murdering Francis, Théogène strives to silence his voice, through his broadcast Francis is able to escape from below to emerge, not only upstairs, but inside, not only the palace, but Théogène’s conscience. He transcends the prison where his physical body is held and later, even death.

The speech may be read several ways: summoning the history of the Duvaliers’ policy of arresting, torturing, and exiling journalists in an effort to silence them that ultimately failed, Théogène’s attempts to silence Francis actually augments his impact both on his listeners and his target. Even though he lays prostrate in the belly of the palace, Francis is able to wreak havoc on the President who sits upstairs almost catatonic, his eye twitching while he listens to Francis’ voice come at him like a ghost. Francis’ words may also be read against Aristide’s winning the first election with 67% of the popular vote and the second election with 91.69%. He was someone who pèp la saw as their sun and Francis gives voice to their sense of betrayal and outrage. Still, the speech could just as easily be referring to other leaders. In his talking of dreaming of the sun, but being brought darkness, Francis may be seen as comparing Théogène’s reign to that of Papa Doc who won the people’s trust through his work as a country doctor and his promotion of Haitian culture. The speech is open to several interpretations because none of these men’s actions are anomalies. Nor are they aberrations. Nor is the corruption and abuse by those in power a recent phenomenon (Trouillot, 1990a: 15). As historian Laurent Dubois (2012) notes in Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, several leaders have sold Haitian resources out from under them regardless of the environmental consequences and the economic repercussions for the majority of the population.

While Francis’ wishing Théogène happy birthday draws a direct line between several historical rulers and this fictionalized administration, it is important to remember that the ideological, environmental, psychological, economic, political, and bodily violence that he chronicles can be traced to Christopher Columbus’ first contact with the island that he dubbed Hispaniola and his subsequent decimation of the native population. Moreover, while Théogène may be seen as part and parcel of the Citadel’s legacy, heir to the curse of Christophe’s hubris and perpetrator of a similar brutality, it is a mistake to see Haiti’s history simply in terms of exceptionalism, as Trouillot (1990b) cautions. Rather, it is part of a historical and global phenomenon, another example of absolute power’s potential to corrupt absolutely.

When Francis is brought upstairs and “to the table” ¹⁵ to have dinner with Théogène, both the brutality of the preparation for and the event itself, is contrasted with the environment of civility. While he is still downstairs in the basement/dungeon, being prepared to be brought to dinner, classical music plays as the camera pans up Francis’ bloodied torso. A hand uses what seems to be the same sponge that was used in his earlier torture to massage away the blood. The camera continues to pan up to his head where another hand uses a white cloth to wash the blood from his face. His torturer’s voice is heard off-screen calling for Betadine to clean up the evidence of Francis losing control of his bowels. When the torturer next calls for water, the camera cuts to a henchman throwing water from a white enamel basin before cutting again to a close-up of Francis’ face registering shock when the water splashes him and then passing out, sinking into the upright metal bed frame to which he has been tied. The whole time this festival of horror plays out, whining and panting dogs can be heard off-screen. The onscreen violence coupled with the off-screen sounds draws a connection between the scene in which the audience initially saw Francis just a couple of feet away from one dog exerting dominance over another, taking its food. As Francis is made ready for his upstairs appearance, the dogs are obviously still close by, echoing the human torturer who exhibits base behavior toward one who is weak(ened).

When Francis is brought upstairs wearing Théogène’s clothing because his own have “been torn” the farcical appearance of gentility is sustained with the waiter reciting the year of the wine that Théogène and “his guest” are drinking. The camera provides a medium shot of Théogène contemplating the flavors of the wine on his palate, then cuts to a close-up of Francis holding his spoon in mid-air unable to bring it to his mouth, so severely beaten that he has lost control of his motor skills. Then, through a series of close-up shot-countershots, Peck reinforces the struggle between Théogène and what he represented to the poor majority who elected him (embodied by Francis) and the megalomaniac that Théogène has become. The conflict is reinforced in Théogène’s diatribe in which he explains to Francis that “Power is not easy… Power’s something you wield concretely, strenuously, day after day. And it’s not easy. It calls for sacrifices. Major sacrifices.”

While Francis struggles to reach his fork, Théogène lectures him on his own suffering during his 3 years in exile, complaining about the way the Americans set the conditions for his return, not leaving him much choice in how he ruled the country, “democratically speaking.” His lecture can be read in relation to Aristide’s protestations about his initial exile from 1991 to 1994 when he was forced to accept the United States’ conditions for his return and that resulted in the near collapse of the Haitian economy. Here Peck throws a pwen at not only Aristide, but the international community that had a hand in the economic troubles that began plaguing the country in the 1990s through to Aristide’s second presidency. As Trouillot (1994) remarks in his short piece, “Aristide’s Challenge,” the president’s return to Haiti in 1994 was accompanied by an economic program that went beyond the expectations of even the IMF (International Monetary Fund). It called for, among other things, the removal of all import tariffs except on a few cereals and was tilted in favor of the traditional elites who would dominate the trade in imported products (Trouillot, 1994). Trouillot (1994) wonders if Aristide would decide whether the economic plans that became one of the main fixtures of his program going forward with his presidency—and which brought him foreign support—would be imposed on the Haitian people or whether the Haitian state would finally listen to the voices of the nation. It would seem from Peck’s depiction of Théogène, that given the difficult decision with which he was faced, Aristide chose to appease the international community, which later turned its back on him.

Hearing what is not said/seeing what is not shown and a “confession”

Literary theorist Pierre Macherey (1978: 85) proposes that it is useful and legitimate to ask of every production what it tacitly implies. So it is with Moloch Tropical where in hearing about the president’s suffering, the viewer is also asked to consider what is left out. This need to ask what is left out of the narrative is true for a number of Haiti’s exiled presidents, dating back to Toussaint. For example, though the story of Toussaint’s kidnapping and subsequent imprisonment in Fort-de-Joux where he died of exposure is well known, that of his betrayal of the poor masses and their abandonment of him that James tells, is not so well-circulated. In more recent history, Baby Doc’s exile meant living in the South of France on the millions that he stole from the Haitian treasury. In the case of Aristide, during his second exile he was a guest of the South African government, receiving a salary and provided staff while living with his family in a government villa in Pretoria. Moreover, while former leaders remember their years of exile with bitterness, they seem to forget the suffering of those left behind. Following Baby Doc’s departure, the hope that brought him down was soon crushed by a series of repressive governments including that of Henri Namphy whose regime was given the moniker, “Duvalierism without Duvalier,” a voter massacre in 1987, followed by the fraudulent election of Leslie Manigat in 1988 for just a few months before Namphy staged a coup d’état. By September of the same year, Prosper Avril had deposed Namphy in a coup d’état. The people who suffered the most during these years were the Haitian urban and rural poor who not only had to contend with political persecution, but were made even poorer while the rich profited. During Aristide’s first exile, the US-imposed economic sanctions and an embargo again meant that the poor were made poorer while the rich prospered. Following both his first and second exiles, thousands of his supporters lost their lives either through reprisals or while trying to flee the country in leaky boats. In the film, those left behind as Théogène, his wife, and daughter drive away are his own mother, Ti Coq, the chimès who killed to protect him, and those who protested their own exploitation.

The table at which Théogène and Francis “dine” with its beautiful setting, rich foods, and wine invokes Aristide’s usage of the table as a metaphor for the privilege of the wealthy and the exploitation of the poor. In In Parish of the Poor: Writings from Haiti, Aristide (1990) wrote that the bourgeoisie

sit at a vast table covered with white damask…and eat steaks and pâté and veal flown in from across the water … while the rest of my countrymen and countrywomen are crowded under that table, hunched over in the dirt and starving. (p. 9)

Peck contrasts this rhetoric of equality and the reality of corruption both visually and narratively. Again, through a series of close-up shot-countershots, Peck conveys Théogène’s corruption and the seeming helplessness of the masses. Even as Francis sits at the table, he is unable to partake in its bounty. Though Théogène encourages Francis to eat, “You must eat,” Francis is too weak from hunger, his injuries, and loss of blood to benefit from the elaborate spread. When his fork falls to the floor, he can only watch. Peck has the audience share in his sense of helplessness by providing a close-up shot of the fork as it hits the floor. As Francis turns to look back at Théogène, accusation in his eyes, the latter calls for dessert. Even though Francis shakes his head, he has no choice in the matter and is presented with more food that he will not be able to eat.

But while it would seem that Francis is powerless in this scenario, the opposite is true. He is, in fact, able to enact his own form of power on the powerful. Though he suffers physically, Francis is ideologically fortified. He strikes a blow against the status quo as through his very presence, Francis brings “the people” inside with him and in the process, brings Théogène below to the level of “the people.” He is also able to speak for the silenced masses, telling Théogène that in the eyes of those who trusted him to lead, “You’re not a monster. A monster has majesty or folly. But you twisted everything, destroyed everything. You were the people’s hope. You were a priest. You soiled the dream.” The weight of his words forces Théogène to seek out his chair. Francis continues, “You wanted to be a prophet. You never even managed to be a consistent monster, Ti-Jean. Not even that.” For his honesty, Théogène has him, like he had his mother, returned below, out of sight. Knowing that he is about to die and content in his role as a martyr, Francis simply requests a cigarette before he goes. Knowing that he is one of the “major sacrifices,” his request is that of a doomed man. The camera lingers on his face as, despite the pain from his injuries, he savors the moment.

Although it is not the kind of confession Théogène wanted, this scene can be read as a kind of “confession” that Flynn and Salek propose torture will elicit. According to the critics, a victim of a torturer’s ministrations will, after a period of resistance, always confess … and this confession will disclose details and actualities unobtainable in any other fashion (Flynn and Salek, 2012: 10). Again, invoking the centrality of power, they assert that the “forced confession always takes place within the context of ‘a power relationship’ in which the torturer ‘requires the confessing’ and offers salvation or death that will end the suffering” (Flynn and Salek, 2012: 10). Though Théogène does not actually administer the torture, he is the torturer by proxy since he is the one who orders it. Rather than a disclosure of his antigovernment writings and organizing, the “confession” that Francis delivers is a mirror held up to Théogène so that he can see that he is not even worthy of the appellation, “monster.” It is the realization of what he has become that forces Théogène back to his chair. As he takes his seat, the camera lingers on his face while Francis speaks, allowing the audience to witness the profound effect Francis’ words have on him.

Peck’s depiction of the torturer and the tortured complicates those found in mainstream film. Though Peck depicts Théogène as “troubled” as many filmmakers portray their torturers, rather than present him simply as someone whose sense of self is amplified by the pain that he has ordered inflicted on someone he calls his “brother,” Peck highlights Théogène’s complexity. As the corrupted torturer, Théogène’s relationship with Francis is representative of those he has betrayed. While Théogène’s torture of Francis is indeed, meant to negate him as a person ¹⁶ and as a symbol, and though a “confession” ends in his physical death as with many films that feature torture, Théogène’s actions actually have the opposite effect. Francis and what he stands for—the voice of the masses—continues to haunt Théogène, eventually driving him from the palace.

Before dismissing him, Théogène tells Francis that whatever happens, he would always be his brother; hollow words from a delusional leader who tells Francis that he interprets reality badly. Here, the mise-en-scène reinforces Théogène’s delusion about reality. As Ti Coq drags Francis away, the camera closes in on a wall, the centuries-old mold clearly visible, and the viewer can imagine the blood and memory of thousands who were also subjected to the tyranny of the nation’s rulers. The wall stands as a silent witness, indisputable evidence of what has gone before and what continues to transpire within them. But it also shows the decay and rot that will inevitably bring down the structure, or at least make it uninhabitable, though it may continue to stand as a symbol.

Out of the shadows and into the open

The violence that has been confined to the indoors and largely underground comes out into the open finally when, rather than finish beating him to death in the cellar, Théogène’s henchmen bring Francis outside to the grounds below the fort in order to administer Père Lebrun, a form of “popular justice” that entails placing a tire around someone, dousing it in gasoline and setting it on fire. Although Père Lebrun is named for a local tire dealer and is commonly associated with Haiti, the practice itself, also known as necklacing, appears to have begun in the Cape in South Africa and has been used in other so-called Third World countries as a form of popular justice. ¹⁷ While the practice in Haiti is associated with Aristide, actually angry crowds used it against known or suspected Duvalierists in 1986 (D’Adesky, 1995: 176). The tactic was again used in a failed coup d’état against Aristide in 1991 shortly after he was elected (D’Adesky, 1995: 176).

Aristide became associated with the practice when in September 1991, a few days before the first coup d’état, during an impromptu press conference in front of the National Palace, he seemed to not only condone but encourage the practice (D’Adesky, 1995: 176). Aristide is also later quoted as saying that if he ever betrayed the people then he deserved to be subjected to it (Dunkel et al., 2004: 128–129). ¹⁸ In having Théogène turn the practice on a journalist, Peck reinforces his message of the leader’s betrayal of the masses. Théogène’s appropriation of the people’s only means of enacting justice when no other avenues are available to them against one of their own is, of course, a betrayal. Not only does the scene comment on Aristide’s appropriation of the history and language of the underclass to gain their confidence and support, but it also reaches further back into history to Toussaint’s winning of the people’s confidence as a doktè fey (healer) and revolutionary leader to the enslaved only to re-enslave them as well as Papa Doc’s appropriation of Vodou to win the population’s allegiance only to turn it against them.

A final example of the hidden being brought out into the open offers a glimmer of hope for those relegated to the margins. In the scene, the corrupt and filthy nature of the politics of power is poignantly symbolized by the appearance of the lowliest, but most resilient of all the insects: the cockroach. At the same time that Francis is being necklaced below and outside, Théogène is inside and upstairs in his office readying himself for the evening’s festivities. It occurs to him to lift the veil from the bust of himself that until then has been concealed. When he does so, a large and healthy cockroach winds its way down the bust’s chest and then back up its head. Théogène jumps back horrified, but eventually regains his composure long enough to kill it. As he steps back cursing, again the smooth polished floors of the room are shown cleaved by two large chunks of stone that disrupt the smooth façade. Although he succeeds in killing this one, it is clear that it is just one of countless cockroaches who will breed and bring more cockroaches into the world.

While this proliferation of cockroaches can be likened to the systems of power that repeatedly breed corrupt politicians, even while hiding behind the smooth façade of democracy, it can also be likened to the disfranchised who, though treated as if they are not human, repeatedly spawn others who take up the torch of revolution. They are the ones who repeatedly irrupt through the cracks and crevices of the elite’s façade of control and power, erupting in protests that topple corrupt governments. The comparison of the masses with cockroaches, though perhaps indelicate, is another example of Peck letting the “real” come through in his fiction. As such, he reveals a truth about how, not only the elite see the masses, but also how oppression dehumanizes its victims; a point made equally eloquently by the writer Franz Kafka in his short story, “The Metamorphosis.”

Following Théogène’s killing of the cockroach and watching “his friend, his brother” be consumed in a ball of flame, everything that has, until then, been held together, unravels. It begins with Théogène’s standing in his dressing room alternatively reciting that the people are strong and sobbing Ti Coq’s name—representative as he is of the masses with whom Théogène has lost touch. It continues with his comparing himself to everyone from Joan of Arc to Christ the Redeemer, Mohammed to the Easter Lamb before finishing by quoting from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech during an internationally televised broadcast. It culminates in his inability to keep his womanizing urges under wraps any longer and being responsible for the death of a young student, followed by the Americans formally announcing that they have dropped him and his administration on television as he shouts, “Fuck you!” at the screen. After stripping himself naked, symbolic of his finally shedding the façade to which he has clung and bringing his many secrets out into the open, Théogène descends to yet another part of the cellar where old toilets and discarded building materials have found a home. Finally he makes his way outside where he spends the night quoting scripture, haunted by his betrayal of not only the church, but also those for whom he had vowed to speak as president.

After Ti Coq, the silent and faithful servant finds him and brings him back inside the palace, his mother nurses him, rubbing him with herbs while admonishing him for his cruelty while Ti Coq sits nearby. Echoing the sentiments of the masses who line Port-au-Prince’s walls with graffiti that declares, “Nou Bouke” (we’re fed up), she tells him that she is finished with him: “You’re cruel. My heart is broken. You’re spiteful. I can’t figure you out at all. How can you be like this? Where does all this damned madness come from? 200 years of it. I’m tired, exhausted. I’m worn out.” Although she is talking to her son, she brings 200 years of violence and betrayal to bear on her words. Meanwhile, Ti Coq, representative of the faithful masses who believe blindly in a savior, remains by the side of the corrupt leader. The three-shot scene then, featuring Théogène, his mother, and Ti Coq, depicts a tragic trinity with Théogène representing irredeemable corruption; his mother, those who have awakened to their leaders’ corruption and speak out in the name of justice, and Ti Coq, those who follow their leaders blindly, sometimes to the death.

Reprise: History’s hauntings

Even in the end, when the US representative thrusts the already written letter of resignation toward him, Théogène protests, saying that he will not go. Resembling a line that Aristide claims was spoken to him in 2004, the representative sent to see him out of the country tells him “You can stay but you’re on your own.”

As Théogène and his family make their way down the mountain in a chauffeur-driven SUV on their way into exile in Paris with, no doubt, enough funds to sustain them comfortably, Ti Coq ritualistically commits suicide. So as not to soil the floor and inconvenience anyone he makes sure that he does so in the bathtub. Ti Coq represents a number of things in the context of the film. As another representative of the Haitian underclass that clings to the promise of true revolution, he embodies the futility of their faith. Again, to paraphrase Peck, in order for power to be wielded there has to be those willing to submit to it. Ti Coq, one of millions who look for a savior in another who fails them, falls victim to his willingness to give up his own power. His fate may be contrasted with Francis’ who, even though he is alone in his torture, had the collective strength of the awakened masses behind him.

The name “Ti Coq” also has significance in Vodou and in relation to Aristide, specifically. According to sociologist Laënnec Hurbon (1995), the emblem of Vodou is a cock, the animal most often sacrificed during ceremonies. Thus, Ti Coq’s death may be seen as a sacrifice to the lwas by Théogène as representative of the gwo nègs; those who hold onto power at any cost. His death may also be seen as a sacrifice on behalf of the ti nègs so that things will change. The patrimony, symbolized by the folded Haitian flag in the deceased Ti Coq’s hand signals a pessimism about the possibility of the masses seizing control of the nation as they ostensibly did during the revolution. This is an especially possible reading given that the final scene in the film features protesters making their way to the palace as Théogène flees with his family. As such, Ti Coq acts as a pwen to both the gwo nègs of the country as well as the ti nègs.

The cock is also “a favorite theme in Haitian folksongs … associated with virility and … is an extremely visual and recognizable image, not likely to be forgotten …” (Averill, 1997: 189). Aristide used its popularity to his advantage, making it his symbol on the 1990 presidential ballot. Ethnomusicologist Gage Averill (1997) recalls hearing one voter explain just before the election, “All over the country on Sunday morning (election day) you will hear the roosters. It will be a new sun coming up on Haiti and the cocks will be crowing” (p. 189). Aristide’s election symbolized a profound hope for change to the disfranchised majority. That hope reemerged in 1994 with his return to office when images of the cock proliferated in the streets of Haiti (McCarthy Brown, 1996). Ti Coq’s suicide then symbolizes the complete loss of that hope; Aristide’s emblem of power has burned itself out under the weight of its bearer’s hypocrisy. With the realization of how hollow the character Théogène’s promises were, Ti Coq chooses death rather than repeat his exploitation by the one who will undoubtedly take his place.

As Ti Coq lays with his eyes open to nothing, his feet draped over the edge of the tub with one shoe missing, the camera closes in on his sock that has holes in both the heel and the toe area. Even though this is the man in whom Théogène put all of his confidence and who guarded him with his life, his contributions were not valued enough to allow him even enough money to buy himself a decent pair of socks. Like the violence that is critical to the maintenance of power, those on whom the maintenance of power depends must remain in the shadows. In this final exposure of Ti Coq’s poverty, Peck shows that, like the holes in his socks that have been concealed for years, inevitably, the systems of oppression that have been maintained for centuries will also be exposed. It is only in its full disclosure that its corrosive nature can be remedied. Finally, the scene comments on the hollowness of slogans and promises made to the masses by both those in power within the country and the international community (remember Clinton’s post-earthquake promise to “build Haiti back better”). As one journalist noted following a screening of Moloch Tropical in 2010 shortly after the earthquake, Peck is pessimistic about Haiti’s future (Haiti Libre, 2010). While the imminent social explosion that Peck predicted has yet to happen, his assessment of the futility of elections and reconstruction efforts have come to pass (Haiti Libre, 2010). ¹⁹

As he has done with all of his films including Moloch Tropical, Peck continues to use “the screen to direct our gaze toward les invisibles, the world’s colonized, exploited, enslaved, and oppressed” (Braziel, 2003: 143). He continues to throw pwens at both the powerful and those who are disfranchised in his writings, interviews, and films; most recently, with his documentary, Assistance Mortelle (2013), in which he implicates several actors in the failure of international aid following the earthquake. He also does so in his recently released feature film, Murder in Pacot, that “examines how the quake upended Haiti’s strongly divided class system” (Daniel, 2014), demonstrating that as long as there are abuses of power, especially in his homeland, Peck will occupy his outsider position in the service of the powerless.