The novice becomes the warrior by being subjected to pain
in the forest. Some initiation rights physically wound the novice.
The wound brings consciousness . . .
The only way forward is through the darkness, through the pain.
Fr. Jason Gordon
-WALK LIKE A DRAGON-
The Heroic Journey
-a spiritual odyssey-
A Treatment for a feature film
Drawn by a strange sense of urgency, 70 year old Percival "Mannie" Manuel takes leave from his job teaching music and steelpan in a university in the US to return home to Trinidad.
In Trinidad he revisits places and people from the days when he was one among others involved in the invention and forging of the steelband. Haunted by the recurring nightmare of the events which led to his having to flee the country in the late fifties and fascinated by the new generation that has grown up around the steelband, Mannie seeks to lay old ghosts to rest and finds himself drawn into a personal mission to pass on his experience to the talented young players, especially Small Man, his putative grandson who seems unaware of the significance of his instrument and is, like many of his age, caught in a cycle of petty theft, drugs and violence.
In carrying out his mission Mannie has to contend with Small Man himself who is much more attracted by the glamour and the instant admiration afforded him by his talent and the criminal world with which he flirts than with an old man whom he has never met before and who seems so totally out of touch with the new Trinidad. Stalking Mannie also is the son of the man he is supposed to have killed in a steelband clash in the fifties and was the occasion of his flight from justice. This man is now a major figure in the underworld which holds Small Man in thrall and is intent on exacting revenge.
The action of the film takes place in the months leading up to Carnival while Small Man’s band is preparing for the prestigious annual Panorama competition. Small Man is jailed on a charge of armed robbery, is bailed by a suspected drug lord and because he begins to show signs of thinking for himself, is kidnapped by Mannie’s nemesis and rescued by Mannie, his comrades from the old ‘bad john’ days of the steelband and the other members of Small Man’s band.
The rescue takes place in time for Small Man to take his position as leader of his band for the competition.
It is in the confined space of the jail and later his kidnapping that Small Man faces the relationship between himself, his community and the history of his instrument. But his rescue occasions direct confrontation between Mannie and his vengeful stalker. This leads to Mannie’s death but not before he has resolved the puzzle of his nightmare and gained the respect of Small Man. The final scene is Mannie’s funeral organised by Small Man and his band and attended by thousands of steelband players in an inspiring tribute not only to a significant pioneer but to an invention which is much more a instrument of community bonding, support and expression than of music.
Walk Like A Dragon will work on many levels: Mannie’s many heroic stories, the reminiscences of Ma Elsie (Small Man’s Grandmother and Mannie’s girl friend of the fifties), Small man’s dreams, and the rumours and gossip of the town folk.
A visit by one of Mannie’s university colleagues, musicologist Professor Wright affords us an objective outsider’s probing into this genuine New World cosmology in which he too is involved by supporting the Maestro at the university.
The history of the pan, the instrument of the steelband, shows that panmen have always been infatuated by Hollywood movies. The names they gave and still give to their bands come from movies about battles and combat, westerns and war films which seem to symbolise their own struggles. The movies and later television, the content of which is entirely of US origin, provide a touchstone for the youth of the 40’s to the 90’s in terms of style and action, bravado and rank.
The worlds of imagination, dream and symbol fed by ancestral memory, Caribbean circumstance and the imperative to not only survive but fulfil ancient prophesies and destiny are all woven into a tapestry of spirit and courage incarnated in the figure of the dragon played traditionally at Carnival. These threads and their interaction influence and determine the many layered style and startling imagery of the film.
Walk Like A Dragon, the Heroic Journey, a spiritual odyssey, is a story of liberation through creation. It is told by the liberators and creators of the Caribbean, gateway to the New World.
-WALK LIKE A DRAGON-
into the past, present, future
Follow your TRAIL