Looking for the Obeah in the Redman's Desert--The Calabash Literary Festival, Jamaica 2007

The Calabash International Literary Festival is on my list of things "to do", much like Yari Yari (Jayne Cortez directed a documentary: Black Women Writers Dissecting Globalization about this).
The Calabash Literary Festival has a lot of things going for it. First of all, it's in Jamaica. And as anyone else who has been to Jamaica, will tell you, Jamaica is a special place. I'm not just talking blue water and white sand beaches either. Although I've never been to an African country, Jamaica is the only place I've ever been to where I felt close to this continent. There is something in the air, something in the spirit of the people I met with that testifies to the endurance of the human spirit. It's music is a great example of this spirit--it's devouring of Western music, only to be regurgitated, back out into the world for all the Universe's sons and daughters to vibe to. From Jackie Mittoo and other Studio One recordings to dub and dancehall, Jamaica is proof of humanity's innate need to create and to communicate with each other, to be understood, whether by our neighbors, or those continents away.
Now, don't get me wrong--Jamaica has its share of problems like any other country. There's the poverty, the racism, the hurricanes. The gang violence. Jamaica, as we say in Trinidad (and about Trinidad as well) is not backward--meaning it has EVERYTHING: the flashiness of the decadence of the West to Mannish water (goat heads soup).
Jamaica's history is any historian's dream. It's immediate search after Emancipation for self-rule and self-determination, the origins of Rastafarianism, the birth of what one could truly contend to be the first "world music".
Jamaica's early, post-colonial history is a story of young intellectuals of color attempting to act in honor and stand up to the powers who refused to call themselves imperial. There are stories of socialist movements and Imperial terror. And again, there is the culture: The heroic adventures of Queen Nanny, leader of the maroons, or the Pan-African vision of Marcus Garvey himself, Jamaica is one of those places that shout: We are inventive people!

So it was with much pleasure when, at the main library with my son, I saw a little flyer posted neatly onto the bulletin board announcing the premiere of the documentary the Calabash Literary Festival: Looking for the Obeah In the Redman's Desert. I felt so happy at the familiarity of words like Obeah and Redman staring back at me (I swore these words spoke to me, challenged me: so you don't think we can travel to?).

The director, Charlotte Troldahl wastes no time in confirming my suspicions, she cuts to the chase with the words, "Once I was in love with a Black man..."

But something happens. Instead of weaving a tale of exoticism, Troldahl juxtopositions her own personal navigation through another's culture by a showcasing of brilliant, Black artistic expression. By putting these two elements together, by using each as a foil upon the other, one walks away with the distinct feeling that one has been tricked: Tricked into thinking it would be "just another white woman's fascination with blackness" because in the end, this film is everything but that.

Troldahl accomplishes what I feel, many white filmmakers fail to do--represent what to them is the "other", in human terms. Two other white filmmakers I feel who have also, in the past, managed to do so are Clair Denis in her 1988 film Chocolat and Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film Festen. Although Festen is not primarily about race, there is a scene which manages to capture, eloquently, the almost casual, unquestioning ability in which some inherit their views of Blacks and Blackness or any other race for that matter.

It is no secret that Troldahl's film, in the end, has little to do with the filmmaker and her ex-lover but is an honest interrogation into, what is to her, unfamiliar terriritory of someone who respectfully wants to know.

I liked the filmmaker's stunted English: I felt it mirrored this journey she so naively undertook and in the end, triumphs over. By making the project about the talent, by letting the talent, speak for themselves, well, she gives me, in many ways, hope for the documentary genre. I hope this signals a move from the typical Eurocentric worldview. When I watched Looking for the Obeah in the Redman's Desert, I didn't feel excluded, but included, I don't feel denigrated or side-lined, but celebrated and in the end, I think that is important feelings to be left with in this age where many are quick to place a tombstone over racism without actually, allowing the autopsy to be held.

In the end, I came away from viewing her film having been introduced to Linda Susan Jackson, Patricia Smith, Elisabeth Alexander, Kendel Hippolyte, Terrance Hayes and Gabeda Baderoon--talents worth checking out and promoting. These artists become the stars in a story that, whether we like it or not, is a very big part of our world and, just as in the spirit of reggae and every other great cultural gift given to the world from Jamaica, is an attempt at our coming together.

Visit www.charlottetroldahl.dk