About
35 Shots of Rum

This is the Claire Denis of Chocolat that I so admire. Many reviewers claim that these characters' blackness isn't political. But I beg to differ. The fate of Rene and the melancholic air that fills the film throughout is the melancholia of the diaspora. The solitary exile unable to return, several times displaced, finds there is no home other than the previous one he's just retired from. A lesson for Lionel.