Murder in Pacot

The 2010 natural disaster in Haiti serves as the thematic background for Murder in Pacot. Director Raoul Peck has previously made the documentary Fatal Assistance (2013) about the same issue. We meet a nameless couple from the upper middle class, who live in the ruins of their luxurious house in the neighborhood of Pacot, Port-au-Prince.

Their house is deemed unsafe, and the couple is informed that the authorities will tear it down unless they repair it. To pay for the repairs, they decide to rent out the only intact room of the building. The tenant Alex is French and works for a foreign aid organization. He quickly has his girlfriend, Andrémise/Jennifer, move into the house.

Peck makes strong observations by letting the drama revolve around four people who all relate to the catastrophe in different ways. He uses heavy symbolism to show a pessimistic view of Haitian society and the enormous effects of a natural disaster on a society where suddenly everything belongs to everyone. An unpleasant stench of death rises from the foundation of the ruined house. The characters pretend not to notice, a metaphor for how rotten this society has become. The nearly destroyed house gradually cracks up, as does the facades of the characters in the film.

Raoul Peck gives us a beautiful, allegorical chamber piece about what happens when a hierarchical class society dissolves, the distinction between rich and poor disappears, and social roles are turned upside down – at least temporarily. The film is based on Teorema (1968), by the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini.

This text is from the Films from the South Festival, where the film had its Scandinavian Premiere.

"A symbolically-charged two-couple drama confined to the shambles of a middle-class home after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Murder in Pacot slowly builds the tension until the shocking final sequence nimbly puts the last piece in place and everything makes sickening sense."
-Hollywood Reporter