The installation presentation of Carib's Leap was split between two screens. One show shows the sky and its reflection in the shallow waters of the sea. Periodically the calm of the scene is disrupted by a figure falling continuously through the air. The figure is viewed mid-flight, never seen jumping or landing.
Another channel follows the activities of a day in Grenada:
[A] wandering camera captures dogs and goats, children playing, fishing boats crossing the velvety swell, ending with a figure seated on a jetty silhouetted against the sunset. It’s a panorama of the unremarkable rituals of everyday life, but with an eye always on mortality... – Gareth Evans, Sight and Sound, December 2002.
Towards the end of the film the camera moves into a funeral parlour where the dead lie in highly polished coffins. McQueen was inspired to make Caribs’ Leap after visiting Grenada for his grandmother’s funeral; the subject matter of the film is therefore highly personal and elegiac.
Below are stills from Caribs’ Leap.
