The Middle Passage

Martinique-born director Guy Deslauriers' harrowing 2000 film dramatizes the Atlantic slave trade from the perspective of its victims, encapsulating the experience in the story of a single voyage narrated by one prisoner. Moody and impressionistic, The Middle Passage can be compared to the similar sequence in Steven Spielberg's Amistad, but the emphasis here is on the universal rather than a particular event. The evocative English narration, written by novelist Walter Mosley and read by Djimon Hounsou, matches the poetic photography of Jacques Boumendil, which uses light and shadow to often startling effect. But while the film's plea for society to accept responsibility for what was perpetrated is evenhanded, extending to African rulers as well as Europeans and Americans, the devices used to issue it--an opening reverie, the concluding summation, even the soulful, accusatory way that the shackled slaves (particularly the central figure played by Maka Kotto) stare directly into the camera--sometimes seem heavy-handed. (So is the director's penchant for blurred slow-motion shots.) Still, this is a moving depiction of the horrors of the slave trade, overall, and is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Swietek)