The End of the Line: Africa, Death, and Freedom in Caribbean Cinema

Comparisons between different traditions of “Third Cinema”—that predominantly political cinema, thought to be proper to Third World contexts, committed to offering an alternative to the dominant cinemas of Hollywood and western Europe—are often approached from a limited number of perspectives. Latin American, Caribbean, and African cinemas are more often than not discussed in the context of their shared colonial/historical background, their political content, and conditions of underdevelopment in terms of industry, distribution, and markets. There is, however, an even closer and more vital link among these traditions of filmmaking: common narrative themes and a sensitivity toward representations of magic, life, and death.1