When The Harder They Come was premiered in Kingston thirty years ago, over 6000 people invaded the cinema, with another 3000 camped outside. According to one commentator, it was, ‘a measure of people’s thirst to see themselves, their island, and their life on film for the first time. It’s also a triumphal vindication of Henzell’s belief that people want to see, and will pay to see, reality and not celluloid fantasy, on the screen’. Starring Jimmy Cliff as aspiring reggae artist, Ivan, and with a soundtrack that was named among Rolling Stone’s 100 Most Influential Albums, the movie has lost none of its edge.

Based on the real-life story of a 1940s ghetto gunman called Rhygin, the film was highly controversial for its portrayal of crime and violence at a time when Jamaica was trying to present itself as a tourist paradise. A columnist in the Sunday Gleaner commented: ‘I still think it’s a pity that the first fictional movie made here for international circulation, and which through its quality, its sensationalism and its novelty is bound to resound abroad, should have been this film of murder, violence and crime…’

Kamau Brathwaite begged to differ: ‘ “For the first time at last” it was the people (the raw material) not the ‘critics’, who decided the criteria of praise, the measure and ground of qualification; “for the first time at last”, a local face, a native ikon, a nation language voice was hero. In this small corner of our world, a revolution as significant as Emancipation.’

What is it about?

A young country boy, Ivan, leaves home to seek his fortune in the big city. Convinced he can make it as a singer, he takes a number of stop-gap jobs to survive, including working for a charismatic preacher. Unfortunately, he falls for Elsa, who happens to be the preacher’s little piece of sugar. An idyllic love scene on the beach is followed by a horrifying beating and a poverty stricken existence as a couple in the ghetto. Ivan cuts a record which is an immediate hit, but finds out the hard way that it’s not music that counts, it’s money. The music producer pulls the record when Ivan gets feisty and he turns to selling ganja to survive. After a gun-battle with the police, Ivan goes on the run, outwitting the authorities to the point where he believes himself to be invincible, taunting and teasing them with graffiti saying ‘I was here but I disappear.’ His record, ‘You can get it if you really want’ hits the charts again, and Ivan loses himself in a fantasy of being a film-star with a charmed existence: ‘Star bwai cyaan die till the las’ reel.’ He becomes a folk-hero, symbolic of the small man who rebels successfully against the system. It’s an exhilarating ride – until reality hits him and he pays the price with his life.

The theme of rebellion, the identification with movie heroes and the haunting reggae lyrics explain its popularity, then and now. It was a revolutionary film for its refusal to glamorize violence, its unflinching realism in the representation of conditions in the ghetto, and its use of Creole throughout. In deliberately countering prevailing stereotypes of the Caribbean as a holiday paradise, it somehow succeeded in being both critical and celebratory. It set a bench mark which every film made since in Jamaica has had to live up to, and several have tried to imitate.

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