Locarno 2024: Listen to the Voices (by Maxime Jean-Baptiste) | Review
Maxime Jean-Baptiste’s delicate feature debut, playing in the Concorso Cineasti del presente, explores the grieving process through both traditional and modern approaches in French Guiana.
In Maxime Jean-Baptiste’s two related experimental short films, Nou Voix (2018) and Moune Ô (2021), he exudes the haunting past of his identity; his father, French Guiana, and cinema. Revisiting and rewriting on how colonialism can obstruct his culture, he uses experimental methods such as archival image alteration and poetry intertitles to tell his father’s story in relation to his homeland.
His first feature film, Kouté vwa (Listen to the Voices), a documentary premiering at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, takes a more conventional approach, replacing the archival and poetry of his shorts into the present-day with performance and dialogue, while maintaining his themes of the haunted past. Maxime follows Melvick and Yannick, the nephew and best friend, respectively of the late Lucas Diomar, who tragically died of gang violence in 2012. Melvick, now in his early teens, discovers the revered uncle and his homeland of Cayenne, French Guiana. Yannick, who was there on the night of the murder, is forever mourning. These two go forth to wander and confront their grieving through music and words.
Maxime uses the lore of Lucas as the cultural and therapeutic convergence of the film. Early on, Melvick joins a band practice rehearsal where the community welcomes him with open arms. While the camera closes in on individual instruments such as trumpets and drums (most are homemade with scraps such as plastic bins and seatbelts as holders), the camera cuts to Melvick’s joyous face while playing, signifying a deep sense of harmony. Through these performances, the poeticism in the rhythms between the image and sound are tremendously moving.
Yannick, on the other hand, is dealing with a different type of confrontation. The film explores on more modern solutions towards trauma, and in his case, therapy sessions between the therapist and Yannick where raw and repressed emotions are unleashed. In Melvick’s case, conversations between him and his grandma offer him a perspective on the topics of revenge and the future. As a young filmmaker, Maxime is interested on the generational divide and outlets to confront our problems: traditional (song and dance) and modern (talk therapy). Maxime’s visual language suggests the many connections between Melvick and Yannick. An example of this shows Melvick and his buddies biking away together in the daylight, while later on, Yannick and his crew are on their motorbikes speeding away into the night. This can read as the two’s ongoing journey of both hope and despair. That may be so, and through Maxime’s invitation of this small town’s rich cultural ecosystem, the two’s past will always be there, but after listening to the voices, Maxime shows us a restorative future.
The 77th Locarno Film Festival is running on August 7-17, 2024 in Switzerland.
