ABSTRACT
From an aerial view, the butterfly shape of the Francophone Caribbean island of Guadeloupe is evocative of flight, freedom, and unencumbered travel. Yet, surrounded by a seemingly endless horizon on the Atlantic and Caribbean coasts, with only more of the same kinds of tropical existence hinted in the gray-green pebble forms of land to the north and south, such isolation can be overwhelming. After all, movement on an island is decidedly finite. In the face of these two seemingly daunting circumstances, the restriction of physical movement on an island and the remoteness felt at the brink of an open horizon, what can be said of the Guadeloupan postcolonial condition? Jean-Claude Flamand Barny’s 2004 film Nèg Maron provides a dual response, first, in its acute portrayal of movement and, second, in its core thematic content.
