Film Festival film #9: Made in Jamaica

[bcholmes]

Made in Jamaica is a documentary about Reggae and Dancehall music. I know very little about Reggae, so I wasn't recognizing the largish number of big names in the documentary. Including Bunny Wailer, Third World, and others. I was fascinated by how political the musicians were. Almost all of them spoke extensively about oppression, poverty, slavery of the mind, racism, and other such messages.

In some ways, the documentary seemed a little bit aimless. It started off talking about the death of a dancehall figure named Bogle, which I think lead me to expect a story- or event-driven documentary. Instead, it jumped around from musician to musician allowing each to give their take on what's going on with Jamaican music today. But it's the sort of documentary that could have ended anywhere. I enjoyed it (certainly much more than Sistagod), but in the end I would probably put it as one of the weaker films I saw.