Michel Martelly in Sweet Micky for President (Prasperity Group/Ignite Channel, OnSlot Productions)

Haiti, after gaining independence from France in 1804 after a slave revolt–turned–revolution, became known as the first black republic. What has followed in two centuries since are the violent ups and downs characteristic of many post-colonial states. But Haiti, especially after the disastrous 2010 earthquake, has often seemed specially marked for suffering. So when any good news emerges from that part of the Caribbean, like the hope inspired by the presidential campaign of Michel Martelly, it electrifies the vast Haitian diaspora and captures, however briefly, the attention of the world at large.

This intelligent and entertaining documentary manages to give a brief but coherent recap of 20th-century Haitian politics, mostly a tale of dictators, coups, and corruption. An election after the earthquake is seen as an opportunity by Pras Michel, an American with Haitian roots who earned fame as a member of the hip-hop band the Fugees. Michel, apparently, planted a presidential bug in the ear of Martelly, a popular Haitian singer known by the stage name Sweet Micky. Martelly has no political experience, though some of his songs have social messages and he made a career out of being brash and outspoken.

Sometimes he was even profane, and some of his onstage antics were too wild for some Haitians to ever take him seriously as a candidate. When Wyclef Jean, another member of the Fugees and a world renowned solo artist, enters the race, he steals Martelly’s novelty and knocks him out of the spotlight. The campaign, with two Grammy-winning artists in rival presidential camps, was too good for the world press to resist. But when Jean was eliminated as a candidate due to residency requirements, the story was largely dropped just as quickly, so there may be many (like this reviewer) who remember the election but who never followed through to see who won.

Director Ben Patterson thus appropriately treats the ultimate result as an unknown. He finds some suspense in capturing the breathless pace of the campaign trail while tracing how Martelly learns to form concrete plans for the country the more deeply he explores it. Leave it to another celebrity, Sean Penn, to make the most convincing case for Martelly as president: he would make a “dynamic” figure on the world stage, drawing attention to and enthusiasm for the country.

Still, Martelly faces substantial resistance from the political establishment, whose candidate, Mirlande Manigat, bemoans how the cult of personality has come to dominate politics, just like in the United States, she says. And when the Organization of American States, along with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, demands Martelly’s reinstatement in the race after evidence of voter fraud, it’s both a success and a troubling reminder of how Haiti has so often had its fate guided by the hands of (arguably self-interested) outsiders.

A reporter asks Martelly why he would even want to be president of Haiti, comparing it to being the captain of the Titanic. The candidate offers a forgettable answer to the question. Patterson and other filmmakers provide their own, by suggesting that the success of Martelly’s populism would be its own triumph, almost irrespective of the specifics of his actual presidency.

Certainly, Sweet Micky for President is a success as a film and, one may hope, as a means of bringing more (and more sophisticated) attention to Haiti. The rest is for history to still determine.