Moko Jumbie

    Moko Jumbie is an interesting, at times cryptic and jumbled film. I really enjoyed how it showed life in the Caribbean is different depending on who you are. Asha comes to the Caribbean and immediately finds a much different way of life from London. I think what struck me immediately was the difference between Roger and Asha's household, they essentially live in two different worlds and live merely across the street. This shows that the idea of inequality in the Caribbean isn't built on a single ruling class and a single underclass. The social castes are multi-tiered in the Caribbean and are heavily built on ethnicity at certain points. Asha and her family is of Indian origin and are held socially higher than people of Afro-Caribbean ethnicity. Economic status could factor in this to an extent in that rodger appeared to be impoverished as well, but even with all other factors equal people of Afro-Caribbean descent are held lower than people of Indian-ethnicity. All of these groups are still social held under their white European colonizers so I would have thought there would be some kind of unity in their collective inequality.
    I find Asha's Aunt to be shockly bias against Roger and his family, I think she is overly harsh in regards to him and treats him like a savage for being low income. My issue is that Asha's aunt is doing better but not by that much, they're all living in poverty surrounded by white sand beaches. Maybe that will always be the biggest irony of the Caribbean, is that arguably the most beautiful place on Earth is ridden with poverty, corruption, and inequality. Of course Asha is drawn to Roger as he is young and attractive and frankly I don't see a reason why they couldn't be together, differences are there for sure, but I think Asha's aunt creates more of a divide than is actually present. Maybe Asha's aunt is overly cognizant of how thin the line is between her family and Roger and she doesn't like that it reminds her of a worse life. 
    Spirituality pervades the movie, with this idea of the Moko Jumbie. The idea that something dark prowels in the night isn't new but the Moko Jumbie capitalizes on the idea that the unknown is what you make of it. Rodger confronts a spiritual robber on the street and scares him off with his ironclad resolve. the people of the island live with these spirits, good and bad and acknowledge them but go about their business anyway. Asha notices these spirits so heavily because she is new to the island and hasn't learned to live with them. I don't think the idea is to scare off any spirits but simply to live in harmony with them. 

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