MovieChat Forums > Ghosts of Cité Soleil (2007) Discussion > Éleonore 'Lele' Senlis

Éleonore 'Lele' Senlis

posted 17 years ago by Immersion
28 replies | jump to latest

Am I the only one came out feeling a bit unsettled/disgusted by her actions/antics?

It almost looked as if she was playign out yet another chapter of her own gangster/ghetto fantasy before going off to the next - she made some references to Sudan and the Middle East...

It was also a sad scene in which she tells Bily that his brother is the new flavour of the month - having told the camera that she prefers Bily's attitude to 2Pac...

Either way, the lads looked out of their depth with her...

I read somewhere that she is living incognito as she might be positive for the very disease that she was supposed to provide relief for (no judgements here from me!)

What exactly was the purpose of the jarring scenes of her canoodling with one of the brothers in the pesence of a lady tha I presume was his wife...

P.S. Caught this movie yesterday and thought that is was quite patchy and did not really have a main theme to follow (IMHO) - I was also a bit unsure as to who the protagonist(s) was/were...I (sadly) could not conjure up much of an emotion when in the end it was revealed that the brother were dead (natural human respose of sadness to untimely death aside...)

[–] nine10eleven 17 years ago

She also really confused me. What was she playing at?

[–] dougal1218 17 years ago

I can only assume she allowed the director access to the brothers, but she came off as childish and petty. 'Aid Worker'? What a disgrace!

In my opinion she removed any sense of legitimacy from what should have been a fine documentary.

[–] Questangie 15 years ago

I completely agree with you.... she very much disturbed me and it takes a lot to disturb me. : )

[–] whoyodaddy 17 years ago

I saw this documentary last night and I have to say that Lele really shocked me. What was she doing getting so involved with 2Pac in this way? It was truly bizarre and I wondered what her motivations were.

I can understand that she may have been attracted to the adventure of the affair, but her complicity in what they were up to when she was giving them advice on keeping their weapons hidden and only giving up old guns etc was shocking. She was in that scene as much a part of the gang as the brothers were. Maybe I misunderstood her actions, but I have to say that it really did stick with me how messed up it all seemed. She must be embarrassed about how this film portrays her.

[–] Immersion 17 years ago

Ah cool - so it wasn't just me (and I ain't even prudish or judgemental ;-)

cheers all

[–] jayron77 17 years ago

Watched this movie, this girl disgusted me, playing both sides and running around like a cheap whore instead of being indifferent and impartial to all sides. This woman is probably diseased ridden and if not playing a whore to the gang leader would have probably been gang-raped by the "thugs" that she is helping and protecting.

[–] cjayrc 17 years ago

Ladies and gentlemen thats what you call love. When a woman is really in love and feeling someone....you can pretty much get them to do anything, be it stupid or smart.

Not to mention he was the walking definition of a "bad boy" and we all know the allure that has on a vast amount of women.

[–] babybyrd2000 17 years ago

I doubt seriously that an AID worker from France is tagteam screwing two sociopathic thugs in Haiti.

No way.

I thought this was supposed to be a real documentary and I wanted to see it since I had lived and worked there in the past.

Now, I can see it's just another City of God.

I can see Wyclef now thinking..."where can we get a white girl in here?"

just like a rap video

hilarious

[–] nematode-1 17 years ago

I just watched this film, and when I read this particular thread, I am a little confused by everyones reaction to Lele. I know we watched the same film, so why be so harsh in judgement of her? She obviously believed at the time she was trying to give them good advice. Why should being an aid worker somehow make her exempt from having feelings or getting involved in the situation? Why should you sit back in your nice living room easy chair watching this movie and complaining that she was opportunistic? I would say she did a fair greater amount of good by going there and helping than any of us armchair critics have.

First, it is easily seen through the film that everything in Cité Soleil is a mess and nobody had the right answers at the time, including Lele. Second, it is hardly Lele that should be condemed for somehow supporting the violence or making 'wrong' choices. Her role seems so peripheral to how things eventually turned out, but her role in helping get 2Pac and Bily to open up and let the camera get inside their heads probably cannot be overstated. For that reason I am grateful to her, even if the reasons for her relationship with 2Pac actually had nothing to do with that.

This is the closest most of us will ever get to these type of people, this rise of regional gang leaders in the poorest of poor destabalized countries, how they daily struggle to simply survive, and how they get used or disposed of by the political powers de jur. Whether we agree with their politics or the accuracy of how the directors portrayed it, the honesty of the words and faces of these struggling people cannot be easily forgotten.

If you want an idealized view of how you think the world should be, and not how people in unreasonable situations act unreasonably, then maybe watching a National Geographic special on Haiti would be more appropriate for you.

[–] babybyrd2000 17 years ago

I'm no armchair critic. I spent a lot of time....some of it good...in Haiti.

Port au Prince, Petionville, Kenscoff, Miragoane, Le Cap, Jeremy, Jacmel, Petit Goave, Gonaive, San Marc, Cap Haitien etc.....I imported 50,000 tons of rice, about the same of cement, and other needed goods at market prices into Haiti.

I spent a lot of time there dealing with folks.

My beef with Lele is that it is preposterous that a relief or AID worker from anywhere would have the poor judgment to enter into a sexual relationship with a known sociopathic murdering thug. It's counterproductive abd foolish and would not have been tolerated by her superiors.

And to further that by doing it on film for all to see is simply incomprehensible.

Which makes me think it's staged and this is a docudrama.

The Haitians I know say the same thing about this aspect of the film that I do.

[–] sagiye 17 years ago

I was kinda sick with that 2-faced Wh***.
And what was that Cola bottle hanging around in the shoots?
It was such an obvious commercial.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] PorcupineMike 16 years ago

Kudos nematode-1; I couldn't have put it better.

[–] heemail 16 years ago

It is obvious that she favourites the leaders who get injured and gives them money. Perhaps paying was a way for the cameras to be allowed to film, the film does portray her however having a sweet spot for them and being seduced by their 'maleness' and leadership strengths. She went there as an AIDS helper and finds herself having sex with a self-described "thugster and gangster", in a world where Women get little respect and where leaders are known to run around for women... what people can't understand is: how someone like her could fall for that?

[–] cscordo111 16 years ago

It's sad, but the fact of the matter is, she's human and contains the emotional vulnerabilities and weaknesses that make all of us human. I thought it was fairly visible how she gradually became more comfortable with the gang, and ultimately began admiring the bad-boy nature of both Bily and 2Pac.

I think the fact that she became sexually involved with these characters is even more evidence of the truthfulness of this documentary; as placing this in any script would make it un-credible and less believable- but this is how real life plays out- unpredictably.

I would compare it to a variance of the Stockholm Syndrome, whereby those kidnapped become sympathetic for their kidnappers. Lele' began sympathizing and admiring the gang leaders, quite obviously against her better judgement.

No doubt the alcohol and drugs fueled her poor judgement.

[–] pedemano 16 years ago

Éleonore Senlis in real life is actually married to Serb photographer Milos Loncarevic. This romance between her and the two brothers Bily and 2Pac was total *beep* movie stuff.

[–] shaundee 16 years ago

cscordo111 is totally right, she seems quite an emotionally vulnerable character and you cant imagine the situation she was in. Unless you have never experienced any human contact or think everything plays out like a movie in real life you will generally accept what happens in this movie, especially with Lele as more or unsurprising. Great movie though.

[–] pedemano 16 years ago

No I'm right, all her scenes were movie *beep* that the director made up.

[–] Nick55419 16 years ago

Let me point out some fairly obvious facts:
1. There was death and killing everywhere
2. These brothers were full of passion and spoke
with ferocity, even well educated considering their situation
3. Lele was young(late 20s?)

I'm sure none of us have been in that situation. Sure some may have spent time there, buying rice or something, but have you held an AK-47 in your hands, aiming it at another Haitian? I doubt it. If you have congratulations.

I pointed out those 3 factors because when you put them together you get swept up in a whirlwind of emotions. There is the possibility of dying any second, and you might want to feel something other than fear gripping your throat, so you're going to find comfort in someones arms/bed. A lot of cultures around the world see less of a correlation between love and sex, and more of a connection between sex and escapism. In the middle of a political civil war, you probably want to feel something other than hatred.
Passion can be very attractive, even in such a violent form as shown in this film. She was naive yes, was she a who**? I don't think so, not in the slightest. If the setting were a high school in urban new york and she was sleeping with brothers, in that case I would say otherwise.
Was it staged? I would hardly call two little scenes in a whole movie based on the lives and fight of Chimere gangsters, the ruining of a movie. It was choppy and confusing?? Hmmm that wasn't done to show how choppy confusing dangerous and hectic their lives were was it?

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] silentidominus 16 years ago

-_-; She wasn't an AIDS worker, she was an aid worker. There's a big difference... And I completely understood her position on some of the issues. Like she said, forces go in and they want to make things better but after they disarm everyone and leave it always ends up worse. It'd be a lot better for them to keep their guns and keep their power because they weren't doing wrong to the people there no matter how they were colored by others. So what if they fought political protestors and broke up protests? Those people eventually overthrew the country's elected leader and also wanted to fight and kill them and harm the people in the country. They were only doing things to help themselves and their community. The relationship stuff is tolerable. I rrrrreally don't think she's in her 20's like someone said. She looks to me to be upper 30's, even if moderately preserved. The fact that they're younger guys probably had something to do with her decision as well. And the fact that some black girl was near them isn't a big deal, obviously. That's not whoreish at all for them to have multiple girls and multiple children by different girls. Those guys are surrounded by women and babies. They're all doing drugs, shooting and ****ing, it's just their culture now.

Just for a sort of understanding or different perspective my friend (20 year old white girl) just got back from Africa assisting in some relief work, she was there for a few months. I was talking to her online occasionally while she was there and she said she wanted to bang all the hot African guys walking around with AK-47's all the time. She said there's just something about large black men with guns and authority that's hard to fight against, even though she knew they probably all had aids.

I personally can't figure what if any of this is false/staged/faked and what is real. It's incredibly hard to muss out.

[–] bogwart-1 16 years ago

It seemed to me that she was just another black gangster groupie. I think if the aid organisation she was working for had known she was busy shagging a gang leader and acting as an intermediary between him and the authorities she would have been out of there toute de suite.