Book to screen and back again-Dany Laferrière and (re)writing "Vers le sud"

• Published in: Word & image (London. 1985) Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 34 - 41
• Main Author: Lomeli, Timothy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.01.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: 20th century; alteration; Cantet, Laurent; Comparative analysis; Dany Laferrière; film adaptation; Film adaptations; Haiti; Laferriere, Dany; Laurent Cantet; Literary characters; Motion pictures; Power; Sexuality; Short stories; Women; Haiti
• ISSN: 0266-6286; 1943-2178
• DOI: 10.1080/02666286.2023.2278126

This article examines the 2005 film adaptation of Dany Laferrière's 1997 collection La Chair du maître, entitled Vers le sud, directed by Laurent Cantet. In La Chair du maître, Laferrière writes short stories that demonstrate how sexuality can be a form of dominance and simultaneously a method of liberation in Haiti. In Cantet's film, we follow Legba, a sex worker in Haiti, and his relationship with two white women, an already decisive alteration from the short stories that inspired it. By comparing the film adaptation to the short stories that inspired it, I argue that Cantet's film drastically alters the source material and undermines the original intent of Laferrière's work. Cantet's film is insensitive to Laferrière's original intent because Cantet privileges the white characters over the Haitian characters and removes any nuance from the agency of Legba, and the responsibility the women have in his death. This conclusion is supported by Laferrière's republication of the collection as a novel, using the film's title, Vers le sud (2006). Instead of focusing on Legba, Laferrière re-establishes Fanfan, an entirely separate character, as the protagonist and he thus reclaims the title and the original intent of the stories.