Cinema and Neoliberal Globalization: What has been Jamaica’s Experience of Neoliberal Restructuring/Globalization? “Life and Debt”

 

What has been Jamaica’s Experience of Neoliberal Restructuring/Globalization? “Life and Debt”?

 

One of man’s basic drives and instinct is the pursuit and discovery of “truth”. But in a world of Isms and schisms, perceptions and deceptions, truth seems more elusive and reality becomes contradictions of our perceptions controlled by our ideologies, products of human limitations. Nevertheless, throughout history, man has searched for truth and according to Cuandis Callison film, art and media has reflected this “eternal search for truth” (November 14, 2000, p.1). 

It is no wonder, that Professor Bob Nowlan, of the University of Wisconsin would assert, as he did, that documentary is one of the major achievements of cinema and film. Implicit in this assertion, is the argument posited by film scholars such as Vertov, John Rouch, Richard leacock and Fred wiseman, that films seeks for truth or a realism that is never before achieved or represented in films, hence the term “cinema verite” or “direct cinema” which translates truth in cinema. This style of film-making, cinema verite, used revolutionary styles of film-making, which exceptionalized and characterized documentary films from non-fictional films.

Further, Professor Nowlan postulates that films not only seek truth but entertains, expresses artistry and provides social critique for social change. However, it is documentary films, given their peculiar production styles and methodologies that usually fulfill the latter goal. Anti-imperialist schools of thought championed and adopted documentary filmmaking to represent a truth that was hidden from the dominated Imperialist world. Documentary filmmaking strategy sought to override and impugn neo-liberal propaganda and highlight globalization’s devastating effects on the dominated global south whose counter-valance tactics are futile against the ‘bureaucratic phenomena’.

But documentary films such as “Life and Debt” are not immune from scrutiny, given our human tendencies to obscure the truth and conveniently misplaced blame and the limitations and myopia that cloud our judgments. In fact, “Life and Debt” which is an ideological socialist response to neo-liberal expansionism in the world, is a dialogical piece of work that sews together juxtapositions of several different spaces that are incompatible to compose a rhetoric that suits it intertextual concept.  It borrows from Jamaica Kincaid's book “A small Place” written about Antigua’s colonial past to represent Jamaica’s continued struggles for self-reliance in a new post-modern colonial structure. It is a lopsided view that conceals other aspects of reality or views in Jamaica that places the blame squarely at government. But what of the political dynamics in the country that has helped to create urban ghettos that has fuel tribalism, poverty and crime and violence. How does one reconcile the statistical fact that poverty has declined from 30% in 1970 to 2007 the film’s critique that Structural Adjustment has created poverty? What of the economic growth of the 1950’s 60’s and early 70’s that were squandered or used up on imports and consumption? Wenzel’s assertions of a consumer-chain analysis, is even more far-fetched in explaining her dialogical implication of the film, because Jamaica has always been a consumer society since the 1950's, but the fact is it consumed what it produced until the 1950’s. Moreover, there are discrepancies with how the juxtapositions, contrasts and even the subjects and their views are represented. 

Hence the question for consideration is 

how effective is Life and debt as a documentary film in portraying and purporting truth and leveling criticism for change. 

The answer undoubtedly lies in its disposition to believe, because accepting the documentary image as veridical partly relies on trust on the part of the viewers. Hence there are a number of styles that are incorporated in Life and debt to give the impression of believability or evidentiary truth. Further, the critique must be fair and must move the viewer towards accepting the critique and proactively change reality. 

On the other hand, documentarians like wiseman objects, when confronted with the selectivity and subjectivity that is evident in all films, disclaiming his work as truth and describing it as “reality fiction” Indeed,  no work is purely objective, but reflects a particular view of the truth. There is no doubt that the Neo-Liberals and their policies bear some blame in minimizing Jamaica’s economic prowess in the world and creating a passive dependency. Hence a film such as Life and debt empowers or fills the void of contending, opposing voices that are invisible, the dominated class. Hence there is a place for a film such as Life and debt that act as a countervailing force and pivots the tide against the shores. Such films and its slanting are important because it gives voice to the voiceless and serves as a mitigating balancing force in this world that ostracizes and exploits the vulnerable. But it must do so objectively and reasonably while it maintains its aim to provide social critique for social change.

  

I agree with the film’s assertion that Jamaica is rich and poor at the same time, poverty is ubiquitous and an abject state that is difficult to overcome given the capitalist structures we find ourselves. This oxymoronic tale is strange but true. This irony is visually represented in the film’s mise-en-scene where tropical beauty is juxtaposed with abject poverty throughout the film. Stephanie Black, in her opening commentary on the film, intimates that the idea of the film hinged on this ambivalence which is quite overtly resolved in the film. Life and Debt blames the Neo-Liberal policies of the Global west on Jamaica. 

In fact, in the opening scenes, a barbed-wire imposes itself on a picturesque view of lush greenery and pristine terrains that symbolizes this divide between tourist and vagabons, mobility and immobility. It suggests that the richness of the island is preserved and reserved for the “dominated” who through the IMF impose laws that give as much leeway and freedom of manoeuvre to the dominated neo-liberal imperialist, while restricting the decision-making powers of the restricted (Bauman, quoting Cozier). 

According to Wenzel, Life and Debt aim is to situate Jamaica’s tourism within a broader critique of US trade policy and neo-liberal international finance regimes which reflects ordinary Americans' ignorance of this fact.  Globalization with all its advantages of mobility (smooth space) continues to relegate Jamaicans to a lifestyle of dependency and immobility.  In effect Jamaica exchanges one form of colonialism with a postmodern one, as depicted by black and white screen shots and footage of the colonial past.

However, the film ends on a high note: challenging the view that the answers to Jamaica’s problems are not contingent on external but internal forces. Even, the Nyabingi tribesmen decry Jamaica's dependence on foreigners who exploit and exhort the people to look within and become self-reliance. Another scene depicts an exuberant and optimistic matriarch beckoning the government to invest in local back-yard farming so as to achieve self-reliance. Another scene shows footage of the urban poor Natives rioting against taxation on gasoline imposed by the government in April 2000, juxtaposed with tourists leaving, either unconcerned or unaware of the threats posed to their tranquility and their government’s hegemony. These instances are counter-veillance and mitigating strategies that must be taken into consideration in order for Jamaica to grow. It is as if the film is targeting tourists and native alike. 

According to the film, poverty is not just a consequence of Neo-liberal policies, but governments who sign away a nation’s right to self-reliance and development. In fact, no one seems to be responsible, the poor blames the Government, and the Government blames the IMF while they blame Jamaica. It is quite true that Jamaica has inconsistently and incoherently pursued liberalizing and deregulating its economic structure unlike countries such as Ghana and Trinidad that has pursued adjustment and benefited tremendously from such moves. Jamaica has been hap-hazard and slow. 

In closing, the Jamaica I once knew and loved then is different from the Jamaica I know, is depicted by two dissimilar scenes of the same shot. The first shot shows a picture of pristine beauty, a bucolic view of St. Elizabeth pregnant with life. But we are led to believe that this has changed, given the contrasting picture of a famined impregnable, infertile site crying for life. Neoliberalism becomes the target for drought and even rain. This difference might very well be attributable to hurricanes, drought or even bush-fires.

The hope of a better future ultimately rests with the Jamaican people which cannot be achieved passively. Martin Luther King Junior writes that “Freedom is never willingly given by the oppressor but must be demanded by the oppressed. But this begins within a proper assessment of the truth which the film has short-changed so as to drive home its ideological viewpoints.

Other to Points to discuss and explore for further consideration:

1. Jamaican Government has also failed to position the economy and is always quick to justify their actions on external international forces such as the “bureaucratic phenomenon”.

 2. However, It contrasts identical realities (urban poor centers vs. the rural agricultural centres, exodus)

3. Wenzel – traces the global networks that link north with south, 1st with “3rd” worlds 

 and examines how these production consumption analysis formulate cultural identities that link culture with economics.

4. What's the reality now? Jamaica has now a culture of hospitality and servitude – tourism

5. Striated space and smooth space and the mobility with immobility – bard wire at the hotel – important symbol… lines at embassy, who works in the hotel, 

6. The subjects in the documentary are aware of the film and the purpose of the documentary which might very well influence their responses. The camera plays an important role in the responses that are lodged by the subjects. The presence of the camera is quite evident in this sort of filmmaking – “still-in-vogue”.