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By Allyssia Alleyne
When it comes to rendering Blackness on screen, the trauma turns out to triumph over joy. While black stories remain largely underrepresented in theaters, those that capture Hollywood’s attention (and, most importantly, funding) are sometimes stories of struggle, slavery, segregation, and ongoing systemic racism.
While these films speak of vital truths about the many tactics in which race and racism shape black revelry, their dominance overshadows the fact that black people’s lives are more than just trauma and violence, and that not all of our stories revolve around our dating with blacks. Whiteness. In addition to pain and sadness, we revel in joy, beauty, love and ecstasy: the full spectrum of human emotions. It’s general that those emotions are also reflected on the screen. How hard is it to locate happiness and humor in a world full of darkness?
Here are 8 films, adding an Oscar to Best Picture, which highlight and celebrate the many aspects of the Black experience.
In this Sundance favorite of Nigerian-American director Rick Famuyiwa, top student Malcolm (Shameik Moore) and his geek organization of friends obsessed with the 1990s, who live in a complex in Inglewood, California, are unintentionally dragged into a drug world. . and crime after confusion in one component. The film is full of laughter and charm (A$AP Rocky is dazzling as Dom’s runner in his deyet film), but the antics, Malcolm struggles with the kind of dilemma that many blacks know too well. Should you highlight your private background in an admissions trial to increase your chances of landing at a post at Harvard, as asked by a condescending third-class counselor, or provide the most holistic edition of yourself that defies expectations?
2. Hidden Figures (2016)
Set in the early 1960s, Hidden Figures tells the little-known real story (well, so far) of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P Henson), Mary Jackson (Janelle Mone) and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer): 3 African-American mathematicians who defeated racism in South Jim Crow and rampant sexism to play an integral role in NASA’s program.
Stories like this show that blacks’ contributions to society go beyond the same identified fields of music, play and literature. At a time when other people of color and women are still hugely underrepresented and underestimated in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, this film is especially relevant.
3. Black Panther (2018)
No film of the last decade has electrified the black diaspora as strongly as Black Panther. From Lagos to London to Los Angeles, they appeared and performed on the screenings of Ryan Coogler’s big-budget feature film, putting African-inspired ensembles in pride and fandom demonstrations.
Marvel’s epic is positioned in the fictional African country of Wakanda, a hidden Afro-futuristic utopia that dominates the global in terms of technological progress. The confrontation arises when, after the death of his father, T’Challa (the titular hero, played through Chadwick Boseman) will have to face a new opponent (Michael B Jordan) who threatens both his crown and the country’s fate.
The fact that the film raised more than $1 billion in international ticket sales and was nominated for the most productive film at the 2019 Oscars (crowned in 3 production categories) showed what we knew: black stories don’t want to focus on suffering for universal appeal.
4. Spider-Man: In The Spider-Verse (2018)
In what may be the ultimate dazzling addition to the Marvel cinematic universe, Shameik Moore plays Miles Morales, an Afro-Colombian boy from Brooklyn who, spoiler, acquires powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider. In this edition of the family tale, he acquires his powers (and, yes, himself) as he runs through iterations of other Spider-Man chronologies to conquer a common enemy.
The film succeeds in every single sense. The mix of 3-D animation and classic styles of comedian e-books is quite unique, and the relationship between Miles and his father is, in fact, comforting. But it’s also a pleasure to see a black kid who loves rapper Swae Lee and graffiti, strolling around town in a hoodie and Jordans.
5. Meeting (2019)
Where Black Is King, Beyoncé’s recent impressionistic account of The Lion King, is a splendid vision of a black fantasy, Homecoming is a love ode to the history and culture of traditionally black American schools and colleges. In photographs of his high-octane Coachella sets and behind-the-scenes excerpts from his paintings with instrumentalists and dancers, the joy of artists is as palpable as Beyoncé’s respect for his traditions.
As a loyal beyoncé fan who has noticed Drumline since 2002 at least a dozen times, Homecoming has seduced me in many points. But you don’t want to be a fan (or even familiar with) the culture of the bands or Beyoncé to appreciate the intensity of the vision, the art point and the specificity of the delight reflected on the screen.
6. Queen and Slim (2019)
In many ways, Queen and Slim is part of The Noir Culture in Hollywood. After a violent altercation with a police officer at a traffic stop, Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) are on the run, fleeing the unjust punishment in a formula that prioritizes the reputation of the police officers over that of black civilians. But the underlying messages around black love, iconography and kinship, not to mention its sumptuous aesthetics, help deepen the conversation.
Fashion lovers will appreciate how director Melina Matsoukas (better known for her paintings on HBO’s Insecure and for making music videos for artists like Beyoncé and Rihanna) collaborated with costume designer Shiona Turini to make her project bigger “for us, through us.” Wardrobe. (Think of lush tracksuits and furs; a blue latex mini dress and snakeskin boots.) Established and emerging black designers, from Sean John and Dapper Dan to Kerthrough Jean-Raymond by Pyer Moss and Carly Cushnie, were asked to deepen black creativity. in the tissues of the film.
7. Moonlight (2016)
Barry Jenkins’ delicate portrait of masculinity, desire, love and family circle made history in 2017, when it became the first film with an all-black cast to win an Oscar for Best Picture, as well as the first STORY on the LGBTQ Theme to earn this honor.
Based on a component of a semi-autobiographical work through Tarell Alvin McCraney, the film visits Chiron, a quiet black boy who lives on a housing project in Miami, in chapters of his life: years of formation (played through Alex Hibbert), adolescence (Ashton Sanders) and young adulthood (Trevante Rhodes). Illuminated and edited to perfection from some otherworldly, in a vintage score cut and fucked up through Nicholas Britell, and moving in terms of storytelling and acting, the film feels sweet and urgent.
8. Rafiki (2018)
Privately, the shy Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) and the flamboyant rainbow-haired Ziki (Sheila Munyiva) live in a Nairobi of colors, joy and romance, being fucked in a van full of flowers and dancing under a soft black in a neon nightclub. all in line with director Wanuri Kahiu’s ‘Afrobugbbleum’ aesthetic. But its story is confusing by the fact that in Kenya, lesbian relations are not only highly stigmatized, but also illegal: last year, the country’s High Court enforced a law criminalizing same-sex relationships.
Because of this entrenched homophobia, Rafiki was first banned in Kenya, but it was a good fortune worldwide: in 2018, it became the first Kenyan film to be screened at Cannes.
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