Review: Black Nativity

Year: 2013

Director: Kasi Lemmons

Screenplay: Kasi Lemmons

Starring: Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Tyrese Gibson, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Jacob Latimore, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Nas.

Despite what my family and friends may think, I am more interested in the voices of others than my own. So listening to the assorted mutters and murmurings of the other patrons of this screening was far more exciting, than me sprouting off any so called film "cred". I shuffled myself into the corner next to the nibbles and earwigged on the nearby conversations.

As the screening of the film was for the new family feature "Black Nativity" the conversations were of course on just where the "Black" movie went. It was invigorating to hear excited voices talk about the 90's boom where films with an Afro-centric cast were a lot easier to discover then now. Even Tyler Perry doesn't make British shores (despite decent minority presence and Perry making top dollar in his native land). It seems fairly obvious that there’s an audience that wish for more movies of this ilk, and while the likes of Blue Caprice, 12 Years a Slave and Fruitvale Station have started to make waves, it still seems to be a struggle to see Afro-centric films in lighter affair. 

Enter Black Nativity which despite dealing with quite typical themes of poverty, religious elders and run away baby daddies, tries to imbue festive cheer by taking the Langston Hughes play of the same name and re-envisioning the material as a modern hip-hop musical. The outcome is more than a little uneven.

Jacob Latimore plays Langston Cobbs (check the namesake), a young and rebellious teen whose mother (a spirited but stilted display from Jennifer Hudson) forces him to move from his (newly evicted) home in Baltimore to his estranged grandparents in Harlem, New York. Here he finds himself on a spiritual and emotional journey which helps him find not only a meaning of Christmas but family identity as well.

Black Nativity is a film which likes to think that meaning well will be enough for it to get by. Its mawkish screenplay and awkward editing, do a lot to hinder a film that wishes to place a fresh spin on a well worn narrative. The film often leaps haphazardly from sensitive moment to heavy handed, obvious message musical at the drop of the dime. You can’t dismiss the quality of the music production and the cast, but you can really raise an eyebrow to the often awkward tonal shifts and simplistic lyrics. One may also wonder why certain famous faces appear in the film.  The likes of Mary J Blige and Nas appear if only to try and engage a certain target audience. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if we got more from their performances, but their aural displays haven’t lost their shine.

The film is left up to the older guard to pick up the slack and Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett happily oblige. Both Whitaker and Bassett light up the humorous and dramatic scenes that they feature in and give the film the grounding and energy that Black Naivety sorely needs. This is much needed as Latimore (Vanishing on 7^th Street) struggles to carry the film where it needs to go. His surliness feels more wooden than anything and the character himself is tough to love at the best of times.

That said, this is the point of Black Nativity. It reminds us that family is not just in name but in blood and while the character’s themes and turns are obvious and the film holds no real surprises, the story that surrounds it has enough small moments to connect with its target base. I also have to say that while the film didn’t stir me emotionally, it did direct me towards the works of Langston Hughes; the black writer whose works became an integral aspect of what was known as the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement which explored the lives of African Americans during the 1920’s. While Black Nativity doesn’t have the same sense of commune and spirit that those works brought to people. It clearly shows a wish to try and reach such a depth. It’s safe to say that a cynic like me may find Black Nativity a little hard to swallow, however I will not be surprised if many get caught up with the films music and message.  I do feel the film will keep the people talking. Hopefully such talk will get louder and more interesting productions will be brought to the foreground because of it. The film may rest on its good intentions, but in comparison to bigger films I’ve seen this year, at least it’s has them.

Review: Blue Caprice

Year: 2013

Director: Alexandre Moors

Screenplay: R.F.I. Porto

Starring: Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Joey Lauren Adams, Tim Blake Nelson, Leo Fitzpatrick

Synopsis is here

It’s an obvious theme to draw on but identity rears its head so much in Black African-American lead movies. So many “black” films deal culturally who they are as people, who they wish to be and of course how White America often perceives them. What interests me about Blue Caprice is the true story of the DC snipers that inspired the movie. When the story first broke, the suspects of the crimes we considered to be white gunman, who were army trained. This alone touches on the depth our cultural perceptions. The idea that the gunmen could be black seemed almost alien to people.

For me such institutionalised thought makes crimes like the one dramatised in Blue Caprice all the more frightening. To think that only some people will commit certain transgression will only allow the evil to flow quicker and easier.  Alexandre Moors’ film toys with the audience with this information. Hearing of America “striking back” during the Iraq spew forth from old T.V sets. The murderous plan that slowly uncovers during the film is full of jihad-like talk and yet it feels more like convenience than a true “calling”. Even more concreted elements of the plan fall to the wayside once we begin to follow the titled Blue Caprice which prowls the Washington highways like a rusted monster. The car takes on a persona of its own with its ordinariness becoming the most remarkable and threatening thing about it.  When we watch, we consider Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). In the same way we wouldn’t suspect the taxi to hide such malevolence, we wouldn’t think twice about the Caprice.

Blue Caprice may not be as potent as Taxi Driver, but the comparisons are still strong. Caprice shows us lonely, confused men, hurt by the women in their life.  We see a mother who selfishly care only for herself and another (unseen) ex-wife and mother who does what she can to keep her children away from their father. We have an unfortunate boy with no parental figure and a father who only seems to create misfortune, by the way of kidnappings and restraining orders.  These men with no outlets for their repression meet through an unexpected circumstance and begin a relationship forged on their hurt. They blow off stream with shooting practice and wrestling in the woods.

 At first we pity the films youth; Lee (Richmond), as he like so many young black men is left with little guidance from his own parentage. As John (Washington) enters his life, he also enters his mind. Clouding it like the overcast weather that inhabits Washington DC. John’s behaviour reeks of deception, he mutters about his old neighbourhood as ghosts who ousted him once his relationship ended yet flitters around Lee (and the frame) like a malevolent apparition. Speaking to his protégé with an eerily calm yet forceful tone. At first their conversations never sound dangerous. Like the Caprice there’s an anonymity about them that shades the villainy.

Blue Caprice constantly hides in the grey and the shade, chilling the bones with its quietly tense nature. It’s the flecks of blood that creep you out more than the full act. The killings are non-descript and never gratuitous, their victims just seem to disappear or drop down dead. The fear hangs in the air like a foul smell. Any sadness we felt about the plight of the two swiftly melts into horror and frustration. It sympathy was felt, it will definitely be lost by the final frame.

But that’s if we had any to begin with. Moors’ film may feel a little too “sundance-like” with his shallow depth of field shots and remind one of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant with much of its blocking of Lee. But from its opening it craftily foreshadows the characters demise with its Hitchcock like framing of characters behind gates and bars. The film's use of light and shadow often obscures the faces of the lead, particularly in the beginning. The film keeps us at distance. Already making sure these people remain “unknown” to us. The last line is a question posed to a person of authority and us ourselves. It burrows to a depth we need from such a drama.  Despite having some of the screenplay’s weakest dialogue, it is far more open ended than you think on first glance, but plays into so much of what I’ve mentioned. When the question is asked, we wonder too. Because we realise what identities broken or missing can cultivate.