Moloch Tropical

*10TH BELFAST FILM FESTIVAL* 

In a fortress perched on the top of a mountain, a democratically elected President and his closest collaborators are getting ready for a state celebration. Foreign chiefs of state and dignitaries of all sorts are expected.

Director Raoul Peck references Alexander Sokurov's film Moloch as he transplants the unsettling mountain idyll of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun from Bavaria to the green heat of Haiti. As it happens, Haiti has a castle even more impressive than Sokurov's - Citadelle Henri, perched high atop a mountain outside Port-au-Prince. Built from massive stone blocks that seem to rise up out of the jungle, it is a remnant of colonial power and debauchery hiding in the mists. It is from this height that the President rules; styling himself an imperial monarch, he moves around the enormous castle, as isolated, paranoid and fragile as one of Shakespeare's mad kings.

Raoul Peck tucks a searing critique of absolute power within an elegant chamber drama.