Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty

Newly Added • 1h 56m

Directed by Med Hondo • 1979 • Algeria, Mauritania, France
Starring Robert Liensol, Roland Bertin, Hélène Vincent

Mauritanian French director Med Hondo’s staggering WEST INDIES: THE FUGITIVE SLAVES OF LIBERTY is a sui generis amalgam of historical epic, Broadway revue, Brechtian theater, and joyous agitprop. Using an enormous mock slave ship as the film’s only soundstage, Hondo mounts intricately choreographed reenactments and dance numbers across his multipurpose set to investigate more than three centuries of imperialist oppression. The story traverses the West Indies, Europe, and the Middle Passage; jumps across time to depict the effects of official French policy upon the colonized, the enslaved, and their descendants; and surveys the actions and motivations of the resigned, the revolutionary, and the powers that be (along with their lackeys). No mere extravaganza, WEST INDIES is a call to arms for a spectacular yet critical cinematic reimagining of an entire people’s history of resistance and struggle.

Up Next in Newly Added

  • Seven Second Love Affair
    52:46
    Seven Second Love Affair

    Seven Second Love Affair

    Directed by Robert Abel • 1965 • United States

    SEVEN SECOND LOVE AFFAIR marked legendary filmmaker Les Blank’s first documentary photography job shooting drag racers in Long Beach, California. Driving everything from hopped up Mercs to supercharged Rail Dragsters, these daredevil drivers could a...

  • The Big Clock
    1:35:29
    The Big Clock

    The Big Clock

    Directed by John Farrow • 1948 • United States
    Starring Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Sullivan

    One of the finest suspense thrillers of the 1940s, THE BIG CLOCK stars Ray Milland as a hapless crime-magazine editor plunged into a web of danger when he begins being systematically framed ...

  • True Grit
    1:50:21
    True Grit

    True Grit

    Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen • 2010 • United States
    Starring Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin

    Originally filmed in 1969 as a John Wayne vehicle, Charles Portis’s classic western novel gets a truer, grittier adaptation courtesy of the Coen brothers. Jeff Bridges is marvelously ...

×