Name: Jea Mycarose C. Rayos Date: Oct.

8, 2021

Instructor: Sir. Kenjay Salvaleon SW-103

Film analysis: One Island Two worlds

Divided Island: How Haiti and Dominican Republic Became Two Worlds is a
documentary film of Johnny Harris in the year 2018. The documentary tells how two
countries shares one islands, and became two totally different worlds. This documentary
shows the dark social realities in two countries from its fundamental roots of colonialism of
European powers, which are the French and Spanish. The film describes the tension of two
countries, Haiti and Dominican Republic. One of the factors that the disparity, discrimination,
racism, poverty and many more social problems existed between the two countries because
of the conflict that until to this present day is unresolved. The film shows that the domination
of one country to the other was the very root that caused the inferior or underdeveloped
country stagnant development.

The film first showed the border line of the two countries where you can readily see
how they differ through surveying each physical environment. The following scene showed
how the people in Haiti live their everyday life, more specifically on their normal livelihood on
selling their products in the market, and their struggles of doing so. It describes how
Dominican Republic government treated unequally the Hatians people. It also shows the
superiority and inferiority between the two countries. The distribution of opportunities among
two governments shows inequality, that only prioritizes who dominates among the two.
According to how they became two world, the film narrated that it first developed because of
the tension in Hispaniola early as the mid-late 1600’s when French privates established on
the island western coast. Spain had already claimed all of Hispaniola which is the name of
the island, resulting in a war and disputes between two European powers and the island
splits which is the Saint Domingue for the French and Santo Dominggo for the Spanish.
These two European powers controls each side of the island in very different ways. The
French exploited the land, abusively used its resources, products, and degraded Haitians
people into slaves that lead to deforestation and barren soils leading the nation to extreme
poverty. On the other hand Spanish rule the Santo Dominggo colony in integrating the
remaining indigenous population by recognizing the native leaders authority and
intermarrying with the locals and provide sustainable economy in the colony. This sowed the
seeds of tension and conflict between two countries that became Haiti and Dominican
Republic in the present day. Because of historical events Dominicans and Haitians have
become culturally and ethnically distinct group of people.

Divided Island: How Haiti and Dominican Republic became Two Worlds is one of the
saddest true events that continued throughout history; an inherent and existent social issue
of metropolis-satellite system, and capitalism. This metropolis-satellite relationship of the two
countries (Haiti and Dominican Republic) made the inferior or the satellite country to become
impoverish. As explained in the film, Haiti needs to export their products and goods for
trading to Dominican Republic in order to survive. In this flow of trading system, the
metropolis will accumulate and gain from economic surplus absorption; such is one of the
big factors why Haiti is stagnant on development. The same situation happened with the
relationship between Haiti and France. Wherein France dominated and used all the
resources of Hatians benefiting from it, while Haiti are experiencing economic crisis. It is
because of the fact that metropolis has so-called monopoly power over the satellite, due to
its already established access to greater resources and possession of more economic
surplus. This provide an entire context that having this system need to be given attention in
order to give generalised facts of what are the pros and cons having this system in the
society. The film really shows the realistic angle on what are the disadvantages
(discrimination, disparity, inequality, etc.), the kind of system provides in a country or society.

Divided Island: How Haiti and Dominican Republic became Two Worlds is a
documentary film that clearly provided and explained the contextual social realities between
two nations who are practicing the metropolis-satellite system. It further elaborates and
shows social issues and problems that a country/society produced because its economy is
driven with wrong systems.