Intermelodicity in Raoul Peck’s Cinema: Musical Narratives of Resistance, Memory, and Postcolonial Identity

This article examines the concept of intermelodicity in the cinematic works of Haitian-born filmmaker Raoul Peck, focusing on how musical elements function as narrative metasporic devices that transcend conventional film scoring to become integral components of meaning-making. Through a comparative analysis of Moloch Tropical (2009), Lumumba (2000), I Am Not Your Negro (2016), this study demonstrates how Peck employs intermelodic strategies – the interweaving of multiple musical languages, genres, and cultural soundscapes – to construct complex narratives about postcolonial identity, historical memory, and resistance. We argue that Peck’s intermelodic approach paves the way for a double process of sonic decolonization/metasporization, challenging Western cinematic conventions while creating new possibilities for representing and gathering Caribbean and African diasporic experiences. Drawing on musicological theory, postcolonial film studies, and cultural criticism, our contribution endeavors to show how sound operates as a political and aesthetic force in Peck’s cinema, establishing connections between past and present, local and global, individual and collective memory.