The Agronomist

The Agronomist

Demme, the documentary’s maker, leads what appears to be two different lives. In one he is a triumphant US film director known for movies like “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Philadelphia,” “Married to the Mob” and “Melvin and Howard.” And in the other he has made films about Haiti, visited Haiti numerous times, helped bring Haitian art and music to wider attention only to see this country victimized by powerful interests from both within and without.

In Jean Dominique and his wife Michele Montas, Demme found subjects who expressed the agony of Haiti’s struggle. The movie draws on hundreds of hours of film footage and conversation from 1991 through Dominique’s killing in 2000. It starts with the overthrow of President Jean-Claude Aristide in 1991; follows the Dominiques into exile in New York; watches as they return to Haiti and Aristide is returned to power; observes how Dominique originally a supporter became one of Aristide’s critics.

Dominique seems to have achieved heroism because there was no other place for a man like him. His college education was in agriculture (hence the title), he first ran afoul of the ruling clique through his work on land reform. He cared about arts, started a cinema club in Port-au-Prince and was closed down by “Papa Doc” Duvalier after showing Alain Resnais’ “Night and Fog.” That was a film about Nazi evil; why Papa Doc did not think it had anything useful to say can easily be guessed.

At first it seemed that rebel priest Aristide might force changes in his nation’s destiny but soon he began employing tactics no different from those used by people he replaced. There is a sequence where Dominique interviews Aristide for his radio station and confronts him with direct questions. The president answers with prepared sound bites which repeatedly say nothing, as if he is unable to understand what answers the questions actually require.

Dominique and Montas are people of tremendous cheerfulness and drive; they leap into each day with such gusto that they sometimes seem to forget how much danger they are in. Their problem in Haiti is that by speaking honestly with ordinary people in their own language, they offend not only enemies whom they know but also those whom they do not realize have become enemies. A country founded on lies can’t afford even truth when it agrees with it.

More than once Radio Haiti-Inter falls under siege, and Demme’s camera shows us the bullet holes in its outer walls. The station appears to be run informally music, gossip, local news and political opinion all get mixed together; during crises Dominique stays on the air as long as possible before power cuts or government pulls plug.

This is a couple who could have lived it up in Haiti. They were the light-skinned children of the French-speaking Haitian elite, educated and moderately rich, with a radio station or some other business that might easily have made them a nice little fortune in partnership with the ruling class. What I find interesting about Dominique is that he didn’t do this. He knew enough about what was going on to see disaster coming; he was too principled to turn his back.

Did he know they would kill him? Who can say? The man’s country was falling apart and our government wasn’t helping matters any, with one hand supporting terror and with the other propping up its killers. It seemed sometimes as if the entire nation had conspired to make its rulers terrified, but even so Dominique could have done what any wise person would have done: come back only long enough to pack, return in exile to New York and set up some kind of opposition magazine or website.

But no. He went back when he might have stayed away. Demme went with him much of the time. We see Dominique being funny and bitter as well as angry; we sense from him not zealotry but simple reasonableness in the face of an unreasonable place. A few minutes after his murder Michele Montas goes on radio to declare that Jean Dominique is still alive because his spirit lives on within her, but watching this film it’s impossible not to suspect that there are parts of Haiti where even spirits can’t live.

Watch The Agronomist For Free On Gomovies.