POINTS OF INTEREST

1) Its depiction of the range of social types in plantation society:
    house & field slaves, Africans & creoles, aristocratic planter, priest, overseer & refiner.

2) Its meditation on Christianity and slavery, the Tannenbaum thesis and Catholicism.

It takes place at a critical juncture in Cuban history when the administration and elite chose capitalism over Christianity.  The plantation chapels depicted here, already unique in the Caribbean, would largely disappear in the following decades.

3) It is based on a true story.  However, the events really took place in the 1740s, not after the Haitian Revolution.  Figures such as Don Gaspar, the Saint Domingue refugee, would become numerous in the period 1791-1809, assisting in introducing new techniques into the Cuban sugar industry that helped make it the world leader by the late 1820s.

4) Causes of Revolt.   What in the mind of the film-maker caused the decisive shift from accomodation to revolt? What relationship is posited between cimarronaje(maroonage) and revolt?

5)  Dramatic structure:  Sacrifice; resurrection; apotheosis.   What outcome is the viewer led to expect by the middle of the movie?

6)  Language.  Bozal Spanish: a pidgin that never developed into a creole.
     Listen for two features:
   (1) 3rd person replaces 1st & 2nd persons:
“Esclavo Antonio dice”--"[I] the slave Antonio say"
“Mi amo dice”--"[You] my master say"
   (2) Repetition for emphasis:
“Caminan y caminan”--"They walk and they walk (a really long way)."

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