NYANSAPO | Ghett'a Life

1) Who was your favorite character (s) from the film? Why?

The prize of being my favorite character is going to the killer of the Don that was terrorizing our heroes from the very start. It's Gully Rat. In my opinion, it's the character that developes his personality the most, he goes from being another villain to the hero of the movie, even sacrificing his own life at the end.

Also, Gully Rat represents the idea of the movie itself. That the people with different political ideas and colors are not the enemy, even when it may look like at first glance. The real enemy has no specific color, the real antagonist is the one that induces violence.

Gully Rat is just another victim of the actual danger agent, being the brother of a Don himself, nevertheless he grows to become conscious of that and end up as one of the strongest allies for Derrick and the dream of putting an end to political violence forever.

2) How do we see the political conflict portrayed in the film? Remember to use the article Michael Manley's Vision to help you

We see political violence as something that is manipulated by a couple guys that don't care about the well being of their political allies. They just care about their own comfort, security, monetary profit and influence over others. They want power at all cost and are willing to sacrifice others using political violence to do so.

The People's National Party (PNP), represented in orange in the film and the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), depicted in green are the contrasted poles in this gang warfare, however, as we can see Michael Manley's Vision, they aren't so apart from each other. In the film, we can see this proven as soon as both Dons are killed.

3) How are woman portrayed in this film? Is it a little or big advancement compared to The Harder They Come?

We could see a little improvement in comparison to The Harder They Come. Derrick's mom, Dawn, comes across as one of the main pilars of the story, without her, there's no one in our protagonist's family to give him support from the inside. She acts senseful and enhances the idea of peace that ends up succeeding at the end.

That makes her a very, very important character. In the other hand, Camella not so much, we could've seen more of her as a person and the way she thinks, she could've get the chance to explain what she saw on Derrick that made her support him in order to reflect about the political violence hassle from the point of view of a young woman. She also doesn't seem to have his own goals to achieve, which is not good at all.