AllMovie

The legend of Alban, the rebel who fought French colonialists before the beginning of the independence movement in the Antilles, is the basis for this film that focuses on the years between 1943-1947 on Martinique. Alban was a black overseer on a French plantation when one day he saw his wife leaving the barn after the plantation owner had forced her to give in to his sexual demands. Furious, Alban shoots his wife and batters the owner, and then flees for his life to the surrounding hills where he successfully eludes the inept gendarmes. He comes to be a symbol of civil disobedience and is helped by the townspeople as he commits various acts of sabotage, including stealing guns from the plantation owner. Many years go by and people wonder how long Alban can hold out. As the film draws to a close, the Flamboyant Tree of the title comes to center stage - when the tree is cut, it does not die, an arboreal symbol of the immortality that pervades the legend of Alban.