Jean Remy expects the worst and he is constantly disappointed. A former French and English teacher, the Haitian Remy has no place in Dominican society. He only finds brief moments of respite in his Holy Roller style services, but his fellow Evangelists seem just as inclined to take advantage of him as the rest of the world.
Eventually, Remy lights out for the countryside, where the film appears poised to take a radical turn into surreal Lord of the Flies territory. However, Remy all too quickly stumbles across two plantation workers, allowing his fatal cycles of victimization and self-loathing to continue unabated.
Deliberately toying with the boundaries of narrative and documentary, JG takes a fly-on-the-wall observational approach to its characters travails. This should sound euphemistic for maddeningly slow and drifty, because such blunt terms are not inappropriate for the film. To their credit, Guzmán and Ramírez capture some arresting images, particularly once Remy arrives in the countryside. However, their determination to cast him as the anti-Job, the man whose prayers are never answered, quickly becomes heavy-handed and repetitive.
Consciously playing himself, Jean Remy Genty projects a frayed dignity that is quite compelling—even unsettling. In truth he has a legitimately cinematic, if weathered and weary look. Yet, the filmmakers appear to deliberately use his religion and self-pity to subvert viewer sympathy against him.
