Retrospective #34 - THIS IS NOT A MUSICAL RETROSPECTIVE

IFFI #34

With his film WEST INDIES OU LES NÈGRES MARRONS DE LA LIBERTÉ (1979), the influential Mauritanian director Med Hondo set himself the goal of liberating the ‘the very concept of musical comedy from its American trademark’. He wanted to emphasise his conviction that ‘each people on earth has its own musical comedy, its own musical tragedy and its own thought shaped through its own history.’

This spirit of decentering – of reclaiming form and voice – is at the heart of this Retrospective. It uses the musical, a genre long associated with escapism and entertainment, as a lens through which to explore subversion, protest and historic memory. Instead of adhering to genre as formula, these films stretch and twist its possibilities, exposing its political and poetic potential. This is not a musical retrospective in the gilded Hollywood sense. This selection shines a spotlight on the soundtracks, which are often neglected in reception and theory in favour of the image. It explores how music and sound in unison with moving images can convey subversive ideas beyond genre conventions: here, they not only accompany the image, but shape the narrative and become instruments of protest, cultural affirmation and historical reckoning, subtly evoking memory, identity and political expression. The films use the transformative power of music, sound and silence to illuminate perspectives that words and moving images alone often cannot convey. They whisper stories that colonisers and dictators tried to bury – while celebrating how simply coming together to sing can be empowering.

The cinematic approaches of the film selection range from conventional and experimental documentaries to musicals that sometimes stretch or transcend genre conventions. There are anti-colonial anthems, satirical comedies or a cappella musicals and even what may be considered one of the first music videos. In reference to the festival motto THE PAST IS NOW, we find dialogues with pasts and possible futures in order to form a new perception of the present – through the creation of counter-narratives, the means of satire and the possibilities of montage. Three thematic focuses are condensed: (1) the struggle for decolonisation, (2) resistance and radical solidarity, and (3) the politics of listening.

The Retrospective and first focus will open with WEST INDIES OU LES NÈGRES MARRONS DE LA LIBERTÉ (1979) by Med Hondo. This extravagant Afro-Caribbean musical uses humour, dance and pointed criticism to expose centuries of exploitation and turns every song into a courageous act of anti-colonial resistance. The Angolan people’s struggle for liberation is depicted in MONANGAMBEEE (1969), the first short film by Sarah Maldoror. While Maldoror experimentally sheds light on the fate of a political prisoner with a jazzy soundtrack by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, writer, feminist and filmmaker Assia Djebar brings Algeria’s silent colonial past back to life with LA ZERDA OU LES CHANTS DE L’OUBLI (1982). Weaving archival images and reverberating soundscapes into a lyrical meditation on memory, resistance and the ghosts of colonial rule, she creates – in her own words – ‘a film like a piece of music’. In AMANDLA! A REVOLUTION IN FOUR-PART HARMONY (2002) by documentary filmmaker Lee Hirsch, on the other hand, the long road to the end of apartheid in South Africa is traced, focussing on the unifying and historychanging power of collective musicmaking and singing.

With the second thematic focus, we move to the United States. NOW! (1965) by Cuban director Santiago Álvarez is described as both propaganda and a music video; the rousing montage channels civil rights protest through stirring music, whilst Lizzie Borden’s BORN IN FLAMES (1983) presents an intersectional feminist revolution with the anthem of the same name, a vision fuelled by punk. SCHOOL DAZE (1988) – Spike Lee’s second feature film – is a spirited campus musical that tackles colourism, class and identity head-on, exposing the political and cultural rifts within Black communities through lively dance and razor-sharp satire.

The third focus starts with the hypnotic documentary THE PEARL BUTTON (2015) by Patricio Guzmán, which dives into the depths of the Chilean sea and interweaves stories about the disappearance of indigenous people and the atrocities of the dictatorship – where the echo of the past reverberates in the memory of the ocean. The ‘anti-musical’ SEASON OF THE DEVIL (2015) by Lav Diaz is set under martial law in the Philippines and orchestrates an unsettling chorus of a cappella voices rebelling against tyranny. In A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME (2015), Jumana Manna travels through Israel and Palestine to record musicians of different faiths, subverting the binary interpretation of this region.

This Retrospective invites us to listen closely – not only to the melodies and rhythms, but also to the way in which music and sound serve as sonic testimonies and shape the political and poetic contours of the films they accompany.