Monday, October 20, 2014

Reflection on The Rum Diary


The film starts with the main character, Paul Kemp, in a hotel in Puerto Rico. Kemp is an author coming from New York with not much success. On his way to the interview, we can see the identity of the Puerto Ricans of that time which rebelled against most of the North Americans that resided in the island. After a quick chat with Lotterman, the newspaper’s editor, he formally gets the job where he is given the horoscope section with the promise of more.

Immediately after getting hired, the editor introduces him to Sala, which we come to now after that he’s an alcoholic as Paul. We can see an in group in this part of the film as Sala gets Paul acclimated with the surroundings while drinking in a bar. We can sense another in group when Sanderson approached Kemp at the office saying that they would talk after because he liked Paul’s writing. We come to know that Sanderson was a wealthy business man in the island who was looking for a writer that could do a job for him. Sanderson introduced Kemp to his group and made him feel part of them, offering him the job to write favorable coverage of what we can see is a property scheme.

From the start of the movie we can sense the harsh environment towards those who were not native of the island. Americans felt superior in this island, we can see out group from Sanderson when he was with Paul and realizes that young men were in his property and abruptly tells them to get out of his land. The Puerto Ricans leaving this situation with resentment, we see another out group, but this time it was towards the Americans when Sala and Kemp where at a little restaurant. The guys that Sanderson threw off his land where in the restaurant too and when they saw Paul, they gathered as a group and forced them to exit. Not only did they force them to exit the restaurant, they also chased them to throw things at their car.

For perspective we see important ideas. Kemp came to the island without knowing the reality of the poverty that faces some of the habitants and the excessive riches of others. When Paul realized this, he rapidly changed perspective of the “beautiful island”. He saw that the tourist only sees the beautiful beaches and what is in the coast, but the problems of poverty where ignored. Paul wanted to write about this but Lotterman told him not to because it was bad for tourism. At the end, everyone knew Paul could expose all of them and they closed the paper and took the machines away so Kemp could not print it. Kemp steals Sanderson’s boat and leaves towards New York where he meets with Chenault, publishes the story and gets married with her.

2 comments:

  1. Exactly. It's similar to Jamaica Kincaid's reading.

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  2. Amazing how you could connect both Kincaid's story and this movie. Great Post!

    ReplyDelete