Arnold Antonin’s “Journey Through Frankétienne’s Worlds” (Traversée des mondes de Frankétienne) is an excellent and thorough film. It took the director three years to compress his subject’s seemingly interminable reflections into an 86 minute documentary, the comic and witty undertone of which does not encumber a profound look at Haiti’s changing cultural and artistic values, sometime providing a clever counterpoint to Frankétienne’s own theories.

The narration-less documentary is almost entirely carried by interviews with its protagonist, as well as his friends and family, rather than the predatory “director-to-man” filming technique. Here, “the man” is Frankétienne, a master of his craft, his world, and himself, a cognoscenti of art and literature, and a genius who turns a filmic glimpse into his life into a convoluted discourse about existentialism, culture, and sex. Frankétienne is the “Father of Haitian Letters”, according to the New York Times, yet is seemingly no more than a conjurer of artistic theories and endless words on paper. Put simply, Frankétienne is an enigma, and Antonin offers his viewers no chance of trying to figure him out.

Since his 1974 debut documentary “Chemin de la liberté” (The Path of Freedom), the prolific Antonin has become the dean of Haitian filmmaking, setting the bar high for aspiring Haitian directors. This film has a brutally honest approach, presenting Frankétienne directly to the viewer, without embellishment.

The Frankétienne film made its New York premiere at St. Francis College in Brooklyn on Oct. 11, presented by the Toussaint Louverture Cultural Foundation and HACEFE in collaboration with Haiti Cultural Exchange, l’Education du Regard, and La Fondation Memoire.

The audience of about 150 people, mostly Haitian, stayed after the screening for a 45 minute Q&A with Antonin, conducted mostly in Kreyòl.