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The professional mercenary Sir William
Walker instigates a slave revolt on the Caribbean
island of Queimada in order to help improve the British
sugar trade. Years later he is sent again to deal
with the same rebels that he built up because they
have seized to much power that now threatens British
sugar interests. Written by Anonymous
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Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo (rated
R; 132 minutes). Hoping to improve the British sugar
trade, a mercenary instigates a slave revolt on the
Caribbean island of Queimada. He is sent back years
later to deal with the same rebels who have seized
too much power and now threaten British sugar interests.
Co-sponsored by the Yale Film Study Center.
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It would be a far more interesting
story to try and figure out, or >juxtapose, >why
revolutions in the Caribbean or Latin America, >generally
led to civil >war ?and dictatorship while the revolution
in >North America -- as in what ?>became the
USA and Canada, became >peaceful wealthy democracies.
Canada never ?>had a revolution, but it >peacefully
transitioned from colony into sovereign >nation
without a ?>shot or a death.
The revolution in the United States
was a rebellion of white people against a white monarchy.
American colonists, although in the service of British
interest were not slaves and were not black. Further
to that the class that revolted in the US were the
ruling classes of that continent so when it came to
negotiate they were not treated with the same racist
vehemence that colored Carribbean people were. That
doesn't excuse the the brutality of the eras that
followed but it certainly didn't help economic matters,
which as we all know is the key to the prosperity
of any society.What was very obvious in Quemada was
that there was a war of independence but also class
crisis : between the ruling Portuguese and the domestic
non black islanders and between the black ex-slaves
and everyone else.
Also Canada did have rebellions which
were put down rather violently. Aboriginal efforts
aside, there was the rebellions led Louis Riel in
1869 and 1885, The Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837,
Quebec's Silent Revolution that led to the FLQ crisis
in 1970 where PM Trudeau instituted martial law and
arrested several hundred people without charge.
And what pray tell does Brando's effeteness
have to do with anything? all upper-crust gentlemen
of that era are effete by our standards.
This is an excellent movie for Brando
and history buffs alike. There are many parallels
you can make with current events concerning globalization
and the role that Multinational Corporations Play.
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The title comes from the name of the
island is Queimada, which translates to "burnt"
(ed. the name of the english version of the movie
is "Burn!" ). This is quite adecuate to
the ending (that I'm semi-seing right now), where
Brando manages to capture the head of the rebels by
burning down the island's forests. The plot evolves
around an ex-slave rebellion in an island that had
been previously a portuguese colony (for 200 years,
as they say in the movie) and is now independent with
the help of a british company, which hires Marlon
Brando's character. All the "local" names
are spanish but they speak portuguese, with a brazilian
accent
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"... The young boy who guards
the captured Dolores stays with him and provides Pontecorvo
with a means of allowing Jose Dolores to give his
ideas expression through dialogue. Jose Dolores does
not assail his captor; he tries to inspire and convert
him. He tells the young man that he does not wish
to be released because this would only indicate that
it was convenient for his enemy. What serves his enemies
is harmful to him. "Freedom is not something
a man can give you," he tells the boy. Dolores
is cheered by the soldier's questions because, ironically,
in men like the soldier who helps to put him to death,
but who is disturbed and perplexed by Dolores, he
sees in germination the future revolutionaries of
Quemada. To enter the path of consciousness is to
follow it to rebellion.....Pontecorvo zooms to Walker
as he listens to Dolores' final message which breaks
his silence: "Ingles, remember what you said.
Civilization belongs to whites. But what civilization?
Until when?" The stabbing of Walker on his way
to the ship by an angry rebel comes simultaneously
with a repetition of the Algerian cry for freedom.
It is followed, accompanied by percussion, by a pan
of inscrutable, angry black faces on the dock. The
frame freezes, fixing their expressions indelibly
in our minds.."
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Brando plays Sir William Walker, an
Englishman dispatched to the Portuguese colony of
Queimada in the Antilles, in the 1830s. He is a provocateur,
sent to instigate a revolt by black workers and further
British interest in the profitable sugar trade. Ten
years later, he returns, an emissary for a major sugar
company and intent on destroying the rebel leader
he helped create. Despite his Fletcher Christian accent
and terrible haircut, Brando is excellent here, but
the film, which was beset with production problems
and is less than coherent at times, is only fitfully
rewarding
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Three years before appearing in The
Godfather, Marlon Brando put in a better performance
in Gillo Pontecorvo's undervalued, brilliant account
of a man - William Walker - paid to create war.
Borrowing the spirit of Joseph Conrad's
Nostromo, screenwriters Franco Solinas and Giorgio
Arlorio weave a tale about an insignifcant, Portuguese
Caribbean island that has a significant amount of
sugar cane. When the British decide they want access,
they send in Walker with simple but diffcult instructions:
foment rebellion among the black slaves who work the
cane, overthrow Portuguese rule, then re-enslave the
blacks and get sugar production running again.
With a cold heart, the insanely methodical
and rational Walker sets to work. He picks out a rebel
leader, befriends him, molds him, then sets him loose.
The rebels soon take the island, create a new country,
and then surrender. After his work is done, Walker
disappears.
Ten years pass (in a weird, clunky
montage and voice-over) and Walker is recruited by
the company that owns the sugar cane production on
the same Caribbean island — and therefore owns the
island. It turns out that the company has been oppressing
its workers and the same slave rebel leader as ten
years past has risen up and is leading an armed rebellion.
Finding himself on the other side of the conflict,
Walker must now capture the same hero he created.
Oh, drama!
Oh, drama set to an Ennio Morricone
score!
In one of the film's standout scenes,
Pontecorvo lets loose Morricone over images of a triumphant
rebel army marching along a beach, some dressed in
the tattered clothes of the defeated Portuguese and
others in nearly nothing. At first glance they look
foolish, but as they get closer and we see them for
longer, an aura appears and we realize just what the
victory has given them: dignity. The dark skin that
has up to now been a signifier of inferiority has,
with dignity, become the uniform of a victorious army.
As the scene ends and the rebel leader
embraces Walker, I thought, "No longer will these
guys let themselves get slapped around by the white
man like they did in the beginning." And I was
right. As the rebel leader says near the end of the
film, the freedom that is given you by a man is not
freedom; true freedom is taken, not given. Pontecorvo
intentionally brings together all his weapons to highlight
the beach-marching scene because it is then that these
slaves have taken their freedom — and it will not
be easily taken away again.
In this season of political films
and G. Clooney, Queimada is an example of a real political
film. It chops the head off black-and-white Edward
R. Murrow and blows up Stephen Gaghan's nicely photographed
sandscapes.
Relevant during the Vietnam War and
relevant now, Queimada ends with something along the
lines of these ominous words uttered by an about-to-hang
black rebel to William Walker:
"You say that it is a white man's
world. This is true. But what kind of world is it?
And for how long?"(See
here)
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