Trinidad and Tobago / All works
Cinema
The Right and the Wrong
Harbance Kumar · 1970
Synopsis
In the time of slavery, on a plantation, African and Indian slaves join forces to rise up against their white master, a cruel man. Very soon the revolt divides: some want to found a community of maroons where peoples would live in peace, others demand the overthrow of the system, and the call for armed vengeance collides with that of non-violence. The quarrels between the two camps threaten the insurgents' enterprise.
Context
Shot on a farm estate in Arouca, with amateur actors and technicians, for fifty thousand dollars, the film is regarded as the first feature film produced in Trinidad and Tobago and in the English-speaking Caribbean, along with a gangster film by the same filmmaker released the same year. Spoken in English, it includes songs in Hindi composed by Ved Pal and sung by Mukesh and Manna Dey. A success in Guyana, Grenada and Suriname, it was panned by the critics, and its depiction of the plantation provoked Black Power demonstrations in Guyana; Bruce Paddington and Keith Warner point out an anachronism there, since the Indians arrived only after emancipation.
Who it is for
For those interested in the beginnings of cinema in the English-speaking Caribbean and in the shared memory of enslaved and indentured people.
Prizes and reception
A popular success in the Caribbean and gold medal for photography at Atlanta, it was judged severely by the press, from Port of Spain to London.