It’s winter in France, the light is dull, the camera pans over a snowy wasteland and enters a massive construction of@男生被男生做的漫画@ steel and glass that is open at the sides, stopping in front of the reproduction of a wooden ship. The structure that juts out over the upper deck is inscribed with the words ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité’. Med Hondo uses this tracking shot to establish the setting of his feature film West Indies ou les nègres marrons de la liberté (1979), while opening up a much larger space to the imagination at the @跑男团男生睡baby小说@same time. The ship turns out to be a most versatile stage for a grotesque narrative of colonialism, slavery and the struggle for independence in the French West Indies. Med Hondo explores his many themes in this limited space, whether it be the Middle Passage, ma@2016国剧盛典@rronage, abolition or the history of labour migration to France. The film marries an aesthetics of thrift with the flamboyance of a musical; different time periods glide into one other as elegantly as the geographical points of reference; and only occasionally do the actors’ visible exhalations, an alienation effect created by the cold, remind us that West Indies was not shot on Martinique.