Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Perry Henzell - Contributed

There were chuckles from the large audience at Jake's, Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth, on the opening day of the recently concluded 2008 Calabash International Literary Festival when an advertisement about stealing electricity was shown on the large screen.

It was not, however, an ad of the 'how come?' variety, but an insert in the late Perry Henzell's movie No Place Like Home.

Introducing the film to the large audience at Jake's, Jason Henzell said, "This is a much more experimental film than Harder They Come, which he (Perry) used to refer to as 'a little crime flick'."

And it is. No Place Like Home, rescued from the maw of closed film companies and dusty, misplaced boxes, does not have the guns, studios, badmanship and music business shenanigans of Harder They Come. Instead, it covers Jamaica primarily from the dual perspectives of a shampoo commercial producer, Susan (Susan O'Meara), visiting Jamaica from New York, and a 'yard' hustler Carl (Carl Bradshaw).

The two are literally thrown together in an old car (real old car of pre-30 years ago vintage) which keeps breaking down), with the erudite Countryman thrown in for hilarious measure along the way.

No Place Like Home might not be a 'little crime flick', but sandwiched between the frustrating attempts to film the commercial at the start and the finished product at the end is the huge crime of the shaping of a country where class bias is entrenched.

So when helicopter sounds pierce the night and a Rastafarian dwelling is raided by the police, the words of a dreadlocks do not move a stern-faced, helmeted policeman. When Carl goes back to his 'turf' and finds that land moves are afoot, it is the prelude to what has become the sequestering of prime beachfront land for tourism interests at the expense of the 'natives'.

Not only social commentary

The Henzell family as they watch the film 'No Place Like Home' at the Flashpoint Film Festival, at the Caves, in Negril, last year. They are (from left) Laura, Jason, widow Sally, and Justine. - File

The shots of a burgeoning bauxite mining industry, scarring the landscape, still ring true today.

Of course, it is not only social commentary, although many a woman will take Carl's dalliance with a woman he picks up on one of his trips (a great-looking Grace Jones) and the subsequent tiff with his real lady as social commentary and not a spot of humour.

One of the most erudite comments in a film that seems to move between documentary and narrative comes from a (who else?) Rastafarian, who says gravely that three 'boom' would solve many a problem; one in Hollywood, one on Wall Street and one in the White House.

Accompanying the trek through Jamaica physically (an airport run facilitates this) and socially is a superb soundtrack, which includes Book of Rules and Country Road and, if released as a CD, is a collectible all in itself.

In the end, after the Jamaican run ends with Carl looking under the bonnet of his old car (once again) near Six Miles in St Andrew, and Susan remembers Jamaica while she is in New York (because of the commercial) and call Carl, the irony of Jamaica is told one final time.

For Carl is now the manager of the hotel and he is too busy to take the call, making a deal that is sure to shaft the 'sufferas' he was once proud to be a part of.

There is, after all, No Place Like Home and Henzell's film makes us see that with the advantage of a wonderful 30-year rearview mirror.