This uncredited quasi-documentary was screened at the 1990 Berlin Film Festival and may never have been actually released. It purports to show a series of Haitian voodoo rituals being performed over the grave of Napoleon (the first general) on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. They are being performed, ostensibly, to free the spirit of Haiti's own Founding Father, Toussaint Louverture (the second general). The ceremonies are like none previously recorded or written about, and involve abusing chickens in horrific ways before killing them. Reviewers felt it unlikely that the filmmakers' cameras would be permitted had these been real ceremonies. If the filmmakers were, all the same, convinced that what they saw was real, the ceremonies could still have been an elaborate practical joke by superficially friendly but genuinely hostile "informants." Whatever turns out to have been the case, the documentary was apparently sponsored by two important French anthropological organizations and a French Bicentennial film organization.
by Clarke Fountain
synopsis
