Kim Johnson's movie Pan! Our Musical Odyssey was one of the best-made Trini movies in a long time. It told its story in an original and absorbing way: a documentary following four pan players from different countries in present-day Trinidad interlaced with a fictional story of the origins of the instrument, following two characters through post-war Trinidad.
The contemporary pan players were drawn from Japan, the US, Trinidad and France. The stories of each culminated in the big night–the Panorama final–with a few twists and turns in between. One player's band didn't make it past the semis. One player was a 12-year-old, who made the point that he had to do his schoolwork. A key figure featured was Andy Narell, who arranged for Birdsong, who was introduced to pan by his father, who worked with delinquent boys in the US and used the pan to get them off the streets.
The fictional story begins in Port-of-Spain after the Second World War, where a young fellow (Goldteeth) steals a 55-gallon drum and uses it to create a larger pan than existed at the time. Apparently then, unlike now, the cops actually worked, so Goldteeth had to go down to the country to hide out till the heat dissipated. There, in the care of an aunt who is a Baptist/Orisha priestess, he refines the prototype of the modern pan. Goldteeth brings the pan back to town, and has it stolen from his posse by a rival gang. There's some warfare, and his younger brother gets "done" (as they say in the UK), for stabbing a rival gang member.
The contrasting visual and narrative textures of the two stories make the movie interesting. Neither story (the fictional or the "reality"/documentary bits) is gripping, particularly, but their hybridisation is inspired, and should be shamelessly imitated by anyone who can think of a way to use it. The fictional part is meant to mime a historical recreation and the visual quality (black and white) conveys historical authenticity.
So, it's original and sophisticated; what makes Pan! na�ve?
Once you get over the originality of the form, each storyline on its own seems banal. This isn't a judgment on the movie, per se (where the storylines complement each other), it's a judgment on the movie's overarching story.
The story Pan! tells is the official story of the steelpan, that's been told and re-told ad nauseam. It's the one the vast majority of Trinis know and there isn't really a counter–or alternative story. It's the story of gumption, ingenuity, and originality from the bowels of the society, from the lower strata, known only for violence and misery. The violence among early pan sides is played up dramatically, then glossed over with a happy ending.
But the real story is the sub-text of the instrument's creation myth. The pan wasn't invented from a tradition of scientific curiosity or endeavour: it emerged from intuition, chaos and accident. Science relies on satori, but after the apple falls on the head, years of experiment, theory and experimentation follow. The former (intuition, emotion) are the qualities by which Trinidad and the Caribbean have demanded to be identified via Carnival, but not the latter (discipline and logic).
Certainly the stories of the invention of the pan involve the coalescence of several streams of effort and experimentation to derive the full range of notes and whatnot. But it's not systematic; what drives the story of pan (and local knowledge) are chaos and magic (as in the Orisha ceremony Goldteeth attends). Absent are purposeful scientific methodology and logic. These absences constitute the chasm between primitive and civilised/advanced cultures. This is a form of reassurance to the metropolitan viewer.
And for all its sophistication in conception and execution, this is the story Pan! repeats. The steelpan is the result of accident and luck. It emerges from a space where rationality and order do not apply. That space has other qualities, the chief among which is revealed in an interesting moment where the Japanese character reflects that she was able to come to Trinidad and be accepted as part of the steelband orchestra, and wonders whether it would be so easy for a Trinidadian who went to Japan.
This is the other, complementary theme of the story: an almost promiscuous invitation to all and sundry. This blends with the mythology of T&T as the land of callaloo and Carnival: no conflict, happy natives making music. Great as part of a tourism marketing strategy. This is what many tourists want to be told. However, as a national mythology it is, to put it mildly, crazy, as the open gang warfare in Port-of-Spain, high illiteracy and persistent, insistent signs that all is not well with the country, relate.
None of this is the film's or the filmmakers' business. As a movie, Pan! is interesting, well-made, and commercially viable. This is a good model for future films. As a medium for nationalist mythology, it's found an unusual way to re-tell a tiresome story. Indeed, much of Carnival's "creativity" seems to be directed to finding ways to repeat the same story, and divert attention from difficult, and potentially toxic, sociological and cultural questions it implies.
Thus the naivete of Pan! lies under its sophisticated exterior; it tells a familiar tale of simple, happy people and society offering a respite from the sterile civility of the metropole (itself an increasingly transparent myth). As part of an artistic repertoire, the movie and instrument are valuable. As a materialisation of a nationalistic trope, not.
But it's not the only example of naivete. A much less interesting example is to be found in Sean Hodgkinson's Wendy.
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(To be continued.)