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Living

Rough Cut

A documentary filmmaker tells a story of Haiti that no news report could.

By DAVID ADAMS
Published April 29, 2007

"I invite you to listen to a story gone bad."

Sung by a Haitian rapper and gang leader named 2Pac, this doleful line is from a stunning new documentary about the final chaotic days of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's rule in Haiti.

As a camera rolls, teen gang members with guns - some dressed in police uniforms - pile into the back of an SUV before racing off to do the government's bidding.

In another shot, a gang leader behind the wheel waves an official pass declaring him to be on the staff of the mayor of Port-au-Prince.

In their downtime, the gang leaders smoke marijuana, bang out rap songs and brag about their gangsta lives under the protective cloak of the state.

Danish filmmaker Asger Leth and his crew spent months living and working alongside the gangs. The result is Ghosts of Cite Soleil, an astonishingly visceral, often shocking portrait of gang life in Haiti's infamous slum, an explosive social and political cauldron that has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the impoverished island nation.

Ghosts takes its title from a Haitian word - chimeres - given to the dreaded gangs who haunt filthy, unpaved alleyways. As the name suggests, they are rarely seen openly in public.

The use of the chimeres by Haitian political leaders has long been debated. They have been implicated in political assassinations and intimidation, and, three years after Aristide's ouster, gang violence continues to frustrate U.N. efforts to "stabilize" the country.

New light is shed by Leth's documentary, which is winning praise at international film festivals in Europe and North America. It opens in limited release in the United States in June.

Ghosts is the riveting story of Winson "2Pac" Jean and James "Bily" Petit Frere, who achieved almost legendary status in their brief heyday as chimeres leaders in Cite Soleil. They are brothers who led armed gangs but differed over their loyalty to Aristide - and their rivalry for the affection of a French medical relief worker.

Part of the film revolves around 2Pac's relationship with Eleonore "Lele" Senlis, an experienced aid worker who arrived in Haiti in June 2003 to provide medical support to Cite Soleil's rundown hospital.

The government of Aristide was collapsing under accusations of drug corruption and human rights abuses. Virtually abandoned by the world, the former slum priest once viewed as the country's savior was facing mounting domestic opposition. The gangs of Cite Soleil were his last line of defense.

In one scene after another, gang members wield their guns in the name of Aristide, threatening to eliminate anyone who crosses them for whatever reason, no matter how trivial.

The film tries to humanize the brothers, who show touches of tenderness despite their ruthless exploits. Bily and 2Pac may be gangsters, but they also pretend to speak for the slum's disenfranchised residents.

"People in Cite Soleil have nobody to speak for them. Only Aristide, " said Bily. "If you don't have a gun, no power."

He and his brother also have a strong sense of their own mortality. "In Cite Soleil you never live long, always die young, " he said.

Cite Soleil, a rabbit warren built along canals filled with garbage floating on fetid water, was the epicenter of some of the worst violence. The hospital, one of the few semifunctioning public institutions in the slum, was behind the front lines of a virtual war zone.

Senlis, the aid worker, couldn't navigate the slums without coming into contact with the gangs. At first, she said, she hardly noticed them. But they quickly dropped their inhibitions. "I started to see them, and their guns. They wanted to know who I was and how much money I had, " she said, interviewed by phone in Moscow, where she now lives.

They quickly discovered she didn't have any money and that the flow of medical supplies to the hospital's poor patients depended in large part on her.

So they became her protectors. Sometimes she would tend their wounds, occasionally reprimanding them like bad schoolboys. "Don't be the president's soldiers again, at least for a few days, " she said after patching up one injured gang member.

Audiences may find Senlis' role hard to comprehend. She becomes romantically involved with both brothers, and in one scene is filmed lying in bed smoking pot with 2Pac. Senlis makes no excuses. She puts it down to her "wild" side, since tamed by marriage and, recently, motherhood.

Without her indiscretions, and the help of a Serbian friend, Milos Loncarevic, the film would never have been possible.

Senlis and Loncarevic became the director's passport into the slum, and much of the film is shot by Loncarevic.

"They had clear access, and I could see Milos had a lot of talent, " director Leth said.

The two were practically the only foreigners able to get in and out, with the exception of a handful of other aid workers and missionaries.

Logistics were the biggest problem, Leth said.

"The story line was pretty clear. I wrote it the first day I met Bily and Lele.

"It was obvious they the brothers were up against the wall. Either they fled the country, or they died."

In the end the only person who made it out was Aristide.

David Adams can be reached at dadams@sptimes.com.

ON THE WEB

The film

www.ghostsofcitesoleil.com

[Last modified April 29, 2007, 18:50:50]