‘Some things never die: music, memories, and loved ones. But one needs to know how to dream, to enhance. Only liars make good storytellers’ exclaims Orelie (Lucinda Messager), the precocious and enduringly charming protagonist who leads us through Euzhan Palcy’s Caribbean musical fantasy film Siméon (1992).
The movie's pulse is propelled by the death of Siméon (Jean-Claude Duverger), a cherrished music teacher who serves as a sentinel of Martinique's sonic heritage. His tutelage persists after his passing when, through a twist of fate, he returns in spirit-form to orachestrate the formation of a semi-fictional band: Jacaranda, comprised of musicians from Martinique and Guadeloupe. Two of the band's members, Isodore and Roselyne, are played by Jacob Desvarieux and Jocelyne Béroard, respectively. Both members of Kassav', the pioneering band who offered the world the gift of Zouk, Desvarieux and Béroard stun on screen as they do on stage. Exuding unfettered verve and soulfulness, Siméon delights in its celebration of music as a vehicle of remembrance, a conduit of connection, and a source of guidance.
In attuning its narrative structure to the philosophical rhythms that shape modes of embodiment, knowledge production, and relation in the region, Siméon stands (topically, formally, and conceptually) as a Caribbean classic. Notably, it centers the importance of oral history and, further, positions Orelie (a young Black girl) as a griot, thereby exalting the imagination of the youth as key in shaping how the broader community understands and remembers itself. The film also coaxes a recognition of how the mythic informs the real: throughout the tale, ghosts are in constant exchange with (and are thus capable of) shaping the physical realm and grounds the audience in the belief that the living can see to the wishes of the dead, just as the dead can see to the wishes of the living.
Following the screening, writer and director Euzhan Palcy will be in discussion with Jupiter's Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, Camille Bacon.
