Falling for Martinique; Zépon is a delightful comedy
By GL Harris
Sometimes falling in love happens under the most unlikely circumstances.
Zépon is a comedy about the stories we make up when we don’t understand one another—who we are, who we come from, and that we can always choose differently.
The latest offering of French filmmaker, Gilles Elie-Dit-Cosaque, is a love letter to the island of Martinique, and to his parents who immigrated to Paris.
“The culture of the Caribbean is very rich and diverse. Gilles’s film is a good example of that as he uses a very popular genre to tell us a story about the island of his parents and its traditions. The film is a well concocted love story with a few surprises and all that makes it a very entertaining addition to the selection,” said Dr. Reinaldo Barroso-Spech, African Diaspora International Film Festival co-founder and co-director.
The story opens with a road trip along the bucolic landscape. The father, called Ol’ Bones for his mastery breeding and training the best cockerels on the island, returns to the city where his reputation was lost many years ago. He will wager the son of his old nemesis, resident bad man, who is as unscrupulous as his father before him. Ol’ Bones needs the money to send his daughter off the island, properly.
“I wrote the script with my brother, Patrice Elie-Dit-Cosaque, who works as a journalist. I brought the main idea of the film: Following a bet, a man plays his only daughter in a cock fight,” said Elie-Dit-Cosaque.
Understanding the culture of Martinique, the director tells his story with all the nuance that is required for this farce—the bet was made after Ol’Bones, played by Christophe Rangoly, was drinking to celebrate his long awaited victory.
No amount of drunkenness could make such a bet acceptable. Yet his dilemma moves the film forward in a way that is funny and heartwarming.
There is a tenderness Ol’ Bones shows his daughter Victoria, played by Sonhée Monthieux, who will leave at the end of the season to pursue her love, Dance. He cuts a piece of fruit peel into a flower and offers it to her, as she cleans up after a dinner.
When Victoria learns of her father’s betrayal she becomes outraged enough to plot her own scheme. She summons the ghost of her deceased mother to get even with her father. And tries to sabotage her father’s bet. But in an elaborate turn of events, like a Shakespeare play, all ends well.
“ I like a strong woman character. It is often said that West Indian society is a matriarchy. In Creole we use the expression "femme poto mitan". Literally it means ‘central pillar woman’, to say that she is at the center and the support of everything,” said Elie-Dit-Cosaque.
Throughout the film, Victoria is hotly pursued by Chabin, played by Vincent Vermignon. She baits him with her sharper wit and makes the “bad man” the butt of her jokes. This humanizes him in a way ridicule might not. He seems more toothless tiger than lion.
“There’s a tradition of laughing at people of African descent in films. For some people it might be surprising to learn that in Peru, for example, making fun of people of African descent and Indigenous people is very popular on TV as well as in other countries in Latin-America where some sort of minstrel is traditional. Zépon is not that. We like to showcase films where people laugh with us, not at us. Other comedies in the festival include For The Cause; The 3 Scoundrels; Tasuma, The Fighter and Maya and Her Lover,”said Dr. Barroso-Spech.
The director found working on the film with his brother an easy experience.What most surprised him was how Chabin’s character emerged and how he changed his outlook on life.
“Well, as I found an unexpected theme to the story, sometime later after the end of the writing, ‘how to escape from our heritage.
“After the final editing, I realized that the evolution of the young man character (Chabin/Goldie) had taken a bigger place than I thought,” he said.
Gilles hopes viewers will feel “some lightness, smile, poetry spirit, and at glance at creole soul” in his movie. Audiences will feel the joy the people have for each other. They will feel the love.
Zepon
Directed by Gilles Elie-Dit-Cosaque, France, 2021, 114 minutes, comedy, French with English subtitles