Review: Pick of the Indies | Movies | Made in Jamaica | Jerome Laperrousaz | The Harder They Come | Reggae

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 22 October 2009

Pick of the Indies

MADE IN JAMAICA
Directed by Jerome Laperrousaz
Certificate: 18

REGGAE music found an unlikely vehicle for disseminating bass lines round the world in the 1970s: film producers teamed up with Jamaican singers to make such seminal movies as The Harder They Come and Countryman, which featured fantastic soundtracks.
Drawing on this legacy, director Jerome Laperrousaz has created a definitive history of it’s controversial offspring, Dancehall.
Speaking to POTI, the director said he believes the universal appeal of the genre is based on the fact it gives “a voice to the voiceless”, and transcends national boundaries. “This music is relevant to the poor around the world, everyone who has grown up being ghettoised, whether it is the suburbs of Paris, the projects of New York, Los Angeles – reggae speaks to every one, to all the ghettoes on the planet,” he says.
Interviewing musicians for the film gave Laperrousaz an appreciation of just how important Dancehall had become.
“They express their identity through music, and it helped me learn about Jamaican history,” he says. “They use music to offer social comment on every day life.”
Laperrousaz had worked in Jamaica in the 1970s and had lined up a team to make a film about Bob Marley – it was postponed by his management over contractual issues. He then went on to make another documentary called Third World Prisoner, but had always wanted to return to chronicle the history of reggae music.
“Jamaica is like a music laboratory,” he says. “It is full of activity. Reggae today has now come through three generations.”

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