Aliker (2009)
Directed by Guy Deslauriers

Film Review

Guy Deslauriers's stirring account of the life and death of the committed Martinican journalist André Aliker has a profound resonance for our time, even though it is set in a time, place and culture that is far removed from our present day reality.  Far more than just a conventional period biopic, the film provides a powerful reminder of the absolute necessity for a free press and its value in exposing the ills that threaten society and undermine social progress.  The film itself is far from perfect, but what it has to say about the contribution that journalists make to society, often placing themselves in danger as they do so, is cogently expressed and has a lasting impact.

Cast as the ill-fated hero of the piece is the established rap artist Stomy Bugsy.  Such is the dignity and conviction that Bugsy brings to his portrayal that it is impossible not to engage with his character's determined struggle against the oppression and corruption that are rife in 1930s Martinique.  Bugsy's humane and charismatic presence is unquestionably the one thing going for this film, which, beset with an overly didactic screenplay and a glum chorus of stereotypical secondary characters, walks a fine line between forceful drama and tacky melodrama.  The only other noteworthy performance is that of Lucien Jean-Baptiste, the talented Martincan actor who plays the militant communist Léopold Bissol, one of the few convincingly portrayed characters in the drama. It is worth noting, en passant, that Jean-Baptiste made his directing debut the same year with the amiable racially themed comedy La Première étoile (2009). Before this, he had appeared in several noteworthy films, including Emmenez-moi (2005) and 13 m² (2007).

The film's one other strength is its authentic recreation of the era in which the story takes place, although this is sadly undermined by the somewhat caricatured depiction of the natives and their white oppressors (the latter look as if they are on a day release from an E.M. Forster novel).  Guy Deslauriers's mise-en-scène is assured but has an annoying tendency to flit between ponderous cliché-soaked banality and passages of exquisite lyrical power.  It is only in the last twenty or so minutes of the film that its artistic strengths and moral subtext are felt.  The sequence that depicts Aliker's brutal murder is, paradoxically, the most beautifully rendered in the entire film and is what gives Aliker's story such poignancy and impact, symbolising as it does the endless struggle between those who seek to bring light into the world and those who would rather we were all kept in darkness.

Film Synopsis

Martinique in the 1930s.  André Aliker is a young militant communist who, against the wishes of his family, takes on the job of editing and printing his party's one-sheet pamphlet.  Adopting modern journalistic methods, Aliker transforms the nondescript circular into a fully fledged newspaper, but in doing so he makes many enemies.  Those who feel most threatened by Aliker's work are the owners of the island's plantations and factories, who are becoming uneasy over the communists' growing influence.  Aliker is undeterred by his opponents and resolves to go on exposing those who exploit their position for personal gain, even at the risk of his own life...