Mangrove: The first film is the most conventionally cinematic entry in the anthology. Two hours long, it tells the real-life story of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill and the subsequent trial of the "Mangrove Nine" in 1971. Opened by Frank Crichlow in 1968, the Mangrove was a Caribbean restaurant that became a community center of sorts for the immigrants in the neighborhood. We see how much it means to these people to have a place that is their own where they can have joyous parties complete with steel drum accompaniment and plenty of dancing. But of course, racist white members of the Metropolitan Police think "they're taking over the country" and "need to go back to where they came from" and the restaurant quickly becomes the target of unsubstantiated raids and harassment. Fed up with all of it, a group of Black activists staged a march in 1970, but the protest turned into a violent confrontation with the police and the second half the movie turns into a courtroom drama where these activists are put on trial for inciting a riot. It's a captivating movie that covers so much history and yet sadly feels like it could be a story about 2020.
Lover's Rock: This movie is a magnificent mood piece that is like watching a music album come to life. We watch a bunch of folk come together at a reggae house party in 1980 and see how those relationships evolve over the course of a night. Most of the scenes are just extended moments on the dance floor, where people give in to the joy of this music, dancing exuberantly and hilariously to Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting," or singing along with abandon to Janet Kay's "Silly Games." Right now, when we can't all be together in large crowds, dancing and experiencing the crush of humanity, Lover's Rock is a reminder of what that felt like. I've never cared for such parties before, but I'm damned if I didn't immediately want to go clubbing after watching this movie. The mood shifts with every piece of music, going from silly to sexy to lazy to ecstatic, and even if you're just watching on your couch, you will feel sweaty and alive by the time you're done.
Red, White and Blue: Here we get the remarkable story of Leroy Logan, the son of Jamaican immigrants, and a former research scientist, who joined the Metropolitan Police after his father was assaulted by two police officers. We see how he comes to the decision to join the force, much to the chagrin of his father, who naturally distrusts the police, and what follows as he proves to be an exemplary officer who still has to face gross racism and discrimination from his colleagues. The relationship between father and son is at the forefront here, a remarkable look at how immigrants want their children to be "more British than the British," but are terrified when they try to challenge the status quo. The courage and thanklessness of trying to change the system from within is also on full display, as we watch this thoughtful and intelligent man periodically give in to furious rage as he realizes what a mountain he is going to have to climb. Logan went on to be a founding member of the Black Police Association, and his story is both sobering and inspiring.
Alex Wheatle: This is yet another astonishing biopic and plays like a superhero origin story where we see Wheatle thrown into prison and then learn about his life story through flashbacks. Raised in a children's home in Surrey, where he faced intolerable cruelty, he fell in love with reggae music and started writing songs about Brixton. We watch as he moves to a social services hostel and finds a group of Jamaican immigrants who can teach him how to "strut like a Black man strut" and give him a sense of his Black identity and what it means to have family. He then participates in the 1981 Brixton uprising, for which he is imprisoned, but his Rastafari cell mate is the man who encourages him to read and tells him, "if you don't know your past, then you won't know your future." This film showcases how hard it can be to assimilate both with wider British society as well as within your own West Indian community if you have had such a scattered upbringing, and it is a beautiful story of a man who took all of his terrible experiences and turned them into something life-affirming and important.
Education: The final film is about young Kingsley Smith, a boy who is deemed too "unmanageable" by his white teachers and is therefore sent to a special school for the "educationally subnormal." Once there, we see what a joke these schools are, run by uninterested white administrators who often don't even show up to class and let the kids run wild. At home, Kingsley's mother is so busy that she doesn't pay attention to what's going on with her son, but when she is visited by a concerned woman who has started to look into these schools and how they are failing West Indian children across Britain, she decides to take a stand. While the story is fictional, it is based on real-life educational practices in the 1970s and is a heartbreaking reminder of the many ways in which we disenfranchise immigrants and minorities right from the beginning of their lives. The system guarantees their failure, and it takes superhuman will and strength and family support to advocate and fight for fair treatment. I'm not sure that we're doing much better in 2020 than we were doing in the 1970s, where children in poorer neighborhoods still receive a lower quality of education and have their life paths inexorably set out for them. This is an emotional and affecting film, particularly the moment where Kingsley finally attends a school run by an engaging Black teacher who shares a book about Nubian Kings and Queens that gets him excited about reading. It takes so little to turn a child's life around, and this movie shows what it takes and how it can be done.
Small Axe is a thrilling piece of storytelling, a collection of eye-opening tales that are worth multiple rewatches. Steve McQueen is a consummate writer and filmmaker, and every single actor in these movies is a revelation, delivering performances that strike your heart and shake you to your core. I honestly cannot pick my favorite film out of the five because they all tell such different but equally mesmerizing stories about people that I would never have heard of otherwise. And while the above reviews have focused more on the broader themes of each film, I do need to call out the specificity and poignancy of the writing in each of these movies. These are fully developed, rich, nuanced characters, and my favorite scene in this anthology is at the beginning of Red, White and Blue, during a game of Scrabble. It has absolutely nothing to do with race, but is a piece of character development that perfectly captured who all of these people were just by virtue of the words they were playing on the board, and then the father's refusal to play a "Y" tile for a very particular reason. It's a little thing, but it speaks to the love and care and attention that has gone into making every single one of these films. Watch these masterpieces because they are cinematic classics we will be discussing for years to come.
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