• Becoming a Gwo Nèg in 1970s Haiti: Dany Laferrière's Coming-of-Age Film Le Goût des Jeunes Filled (On the Verge of Fever)

    Author(s):
    Lee Skallerup Bessette (see profile)
    Date:
    2013
    Group(s):
    LLC Canadian, LLC Francophone, LLC Literatures of the United States in Languages Other Than English, Postcolonial Literature, TC Postcolonial Studies
    Subject(s):
    Caribbean Area, Area studies, Motion pictures and history, Motion pictures--Political aspects, Postcolonialism
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Adaptation, Caribbean studies, Film and history, Film and politics
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M67H1V
    Abstract:
    When all men are either dead, exiled, thugs or zombies in a world ruled through violence and terror by a President-for-Life and his son, how is a young boy expected to come of age and forge his own identity? Le Goût des Jeunes Filles (On the Verge of Fever), a 2004 film about Fanfan, a 15-year-old boy, set in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the same weekend of François Duvalier’s death in 1971, explores this question. Sheltered by his fearful and devoted mother, Fanfan is lured into the violent and unpredictable Port-au-Prince nightlife by his friend Gégé. When a Tonton Macoute (Duvalier’s civilian enforcers) pulls a gun on Fanfan, Gégé vows revenge against the Macoute and convinces Fanfan that he castrated him. Fanfan, now on the run and fearful for his life and that of his mother, hides in a house across the street from his own home. Fanfan has long watched the house from his bedroom window; it is a place where four beautiful young girls—Miki, Choupette, Pasqualine and Marie-Erna—spend time enjoying themselves and doing as they please, but where the Tonton Macoutes are also a constant presence. While Gégé eventually reveals the castration of the Macoute to be nothing more than a prank, meaning Fanfan had nothing to fear, that weekend, Fanfan matures from naïve schoolboy to being a gwo nèg (big man). This essay examines this transformation as it is presented in the film.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    Zubaan
    Pub. Date:
    2013
    Book Title:
    Spectacles of blood: A study of masculinity and violence in postcolonial films
    Author/Editor:
    Swaralipi Nandi and Esha Chatterjee
    Chapter:
    7
    Page Range:
    94 - 109
    ISBN:
    9789381017159 9381017158
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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