Every day of the T&T Film Festival (TTFF), T&T Guardian columnist and film writer, BC PIRES, has been picking a Film of the Day.
Pires has been writing about film from an informed lay perspective since early 1988 and currently writes a film column, BC on TV, for the Sunday Guardian's Arts section.
Pires served on the TTFF's first jury and wrote the judges' report. A different film will be picked every day, and other worthwhile films mentioned. Because of the limitations of programming schedules, the film of the day may not necessarily be the "best" one. Films with an asterisk have been or will be daily picks.
Sand Dollars takes its name from the star-fish found on almost all beaches in the Caribbean, but gives meaning to the sex tourism found in every Caribbean territory. A subtle, deeply-layered film, it follows the path of a young black couple –a man and a woman–who love one another, but who earn the money they need for a life together from having sex with tourists, with money enough to spare. (The man is not shown to be a gigolo but it is implied; the woman's bisexuality seems to be more about doubling income streams than identity.)
Without passing judgment on any of the players, Sand Dollars illustrates the gamesmanship between the natives of usually-impoverished Caribbean holiday destinations and the visitors who come from abroad with their cash, their sophistication and their dream of returning home with the last thing left to plunder here: the people themselves.
Touching, sympathetic to all involved and remarkably restrained in pointing fingers, this is terrific symbolic cinema.
As a lanyap, the lead "foreign" role is played by Charlie Chaplin's daughter, Geraldine, who is magnificent. A thought-provoking, gentle film that covers the unconsidered, rough reality of, "Life's a beach". And a very fitting last film in what has been the best T&T Film Festival so far.