Community and Resistance in Films

There are many scenes which are symbolic and also important but not vividly explained in the movie. In the sugar cane plantation, the most vital; issues were family values, community, respect, and skin color. Joes was an orphan with Medouze as his fatherly figure. Medouze likes to tell him African stories. In the plantation, everyone was involved in the fields with only one way to evade the situation as education (Sylla). Each community member works very hard and immensely to keep the community working. When the children accidentally burned twelve houses of the Toe, Jose was ridiculed for not working since he was not the only one sorting the cane. This depicts that each member of the community is required to work hard.

Though the workers or laborers were not paid well and also dehumanized in the fields, they continued to work very hard to support their families and the community at large. The inhuman treatment in the field showed the level of oppression and also the reshaped form of slavery. Thus opts to take him to school. At school, Jose was a very brilliant boy. He met with Leopold, his friend. Leopold’s father did not want his son to associate with Jose since he was from a low-income family. He does not want interference with his son’s education which was highly treated as a serious matter. He was not made to be a product of the environment. The film was set based on slavery and the legal oppression, social debasement and economic exploitation of the backs.

Education was the major resistance Education was the only means to escape and avoid the harsh treatment by the whites thus acted as a form of resistance. In the sugar cane plantations, the workers were singing of how they were being oppressed. “The masters are now the bosses” this is an indication of the mistreatment in the sugarcane fields. The drug dealers get protection in exchange for profits earned. The people in the city are of diverse class structures. On the streets, tents and shacks live the poor while on the other side of the road; the rich live lavishly with garden houses and massive properties. After arrival at Kingston, Ivan thought that he would be rich and famous by singing.