“Posters of the Sea and Land”: Indexing Environmental Change in Alexander Abela’s Ecological Adaptation of Macbeth
摘要
This chapter highlights the significance of the climate crisis in southern Madagascar, the location of Abela’s Makibefo (1999/2001). In the time since its filming, the southern portion of Madagascar has become more isolated from the rest of the country after recurring typhoons have destroyed roadways and infrastructure, droughts in the south have worsened agricultural conditions, and beaches in places like Faux Cap, the specific site of Abela’s film, have literally begun to fall into the ocean. As such, the environment indexed on the screen by Abela’s lens-based camera becomes more than a site for a Malagasy cinematic adaptation of Macbeth; it becomes an ominous warning of ecological crisis set within a story of ambition that might very well explain the cause of the crisis. Abela’s film becomes more than a transcultural adaptation; it becomes a moving poster that depicts food scarcity, deforestation, and the utter isolation if not elimination of an Indigenous population if the world does not respond to the crises it has enacted upon that population.