Screening for Tuesday 4 August: Rue cases nègres

Director: Euzhan Palcy
Country of origin: Martinique
Year of release: 1983
Running time: 103'

Based on Joseph Zobel’s coming of age novel, the story of Rue cases nègres (Black Shack Alley or Sugar Cane Alley in English) is told through the eyes of José, a young boy growing up with his stern grandmother in the poverty of rural Martinique in the 1930s.

José is friends with Mèdouze, an old field worker who tells José stories of the past and of life in Africa. After Mèdouze’s death José moves with his grandmother to Fort-de-France, where he is to take up a scholarship at a private school. Inspired by Mèdouze’s tales, José begins to write stories that are so accomplished that his teacher is convinced he has plagiarised them.

Humiliated, José runs away from school. When he returns home, however, he finds his grandmother has told his teacher all about Mèdouze’s tales, and the teacher—now full of admiration for the young man—predicts that José will become a great writer.

The debut film by Euzhan Palcy (who would go on to become the first black woman to direct a Hollywood feature, A Dry White Season, starring Marlon Brando), Rue cases nègres is a genuine classic of Caribbean cinema, a vivid and emotional portrait of the colonial society, and one boy’s ability to go beyond the limitations of that society.

(Some info taken from austinfilm.org and imdb.com)