The Woman King (2022)

The full list of my favourite films of 2022 is here but I’m posting fuller reviews of my favourites. This big historical action epic comes from the very dependable Gina Prince-Bythewood, one of the better directors working in Hollywood, and it’s a powerful evocation of an era not much seen on screen.

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Just to kick things off: I really enjoyed this movie, especially as a big screen cinematic experience. It has an old-fashioned sense of an historical epic, albeit about a little corner of African history that isn’t often represented on-screen (primarily because it doesn’t revolve around white heroes or saviours, and surely the time for patriotic stories of European conquests over tribal peoples has long since passed). But it’s curious that this African story is written by two white women; given the other talent involved I don’t think that meaningfully invalidates any positive representation the film can provide, but it might give a hint as to the way in which the film tends towards a platitudinous Hollywood liberal sense of injustice being righted, as Viola Davis leads her Agojie (the so-called “Dahomey Amazons”) as a righteous force dedicated to eradicating slavery.

Clearly there are experts in this history — of which I am not one, nor are many of the online commentators peddling the criticisms to be fair — who acknowledge that the situation was more complicated than it’s portrayed here. Just my cursory awareness of our modern online world leads me to the understanding that it’s perfectly possible for groups of women to come together to actively promote and defend patriarchal systems of oppression, fascism and hate speech. The film doesn’t deny that the Dahomeys were just as involved in slavery as their enemies, the Oyo Empire. So the feel-good roles of Davis as Nanisca, her second-in-command Izogie (the brilliant Lashana Lynch) and young recruit Nawi (an impressive Thuso Mbedu) may not quite reflect real history, but that’s fine by me because this is primarily a film and an entertainment that hopefully leads people to learn more about this historical time and context.

However, whatever your caveats, it’s undeniably a well put-together epic with the appropriate levels of heart-tugging sentiment and brutal warfare action scenes. Gina Prince-Bythewood has come a long way from Love & Basketball and that sweetly saccharine film The Secret Life of Bees with one of the Fannings in it. She made the fantastic Beyond the Lights and her recent foray into action with The Old Guard was the rare superhero film I actively enjoyed, and so she is not short of directing skill, nor is her team lacking in their ability to both capture the location and people (cinematographer Polly Morgan), or the nuances of the acting — and this in particular seems like quite a departure in the type of role Viola Davis is usually seen in, and she surely deserves some awards love for it. There may be all kinds of ways to criticise it, but I admire any film that tries to tell a bit of history we’ve not seen played out before.

CREDITS
Director Gina Prince-Bythewood; Writers Dana Stevens and Maria Bello; Cinematographer Polly Morgan; Starring Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim, John Boyega; Length 135 minutes.
Seen at Light House Cuba, Wellington, Thursday 3 November 2022.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Finally, the review I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for, as undoubtedly you’ve all been hanging back, waiting cautiously about whether to see this film on the basis of my verdict. Well, I can unequivocally state that if you are fond of George Lucas’s original trilogy, then you’ll enjoy this new instalment from the auteur behind Star Trek Into Darkness, whereas if you are at best ambivalent about his franchise’s politically retrogressive and genocidally destructive worldview, then… it’s probably not for you? On the plus side is the welcome focus on three new and diverse young protagonists — Daisy Ridley’s Rey, John Boyega’s Finn, and Oscar Isaac’s Poe. There are some heartwarming reappearances by original cast members, and there are more silly chirruping droids. Plotwise, it feels of a piece with the original film, but the spoiler police are out in force on this one, so I’m not going to go into detail and, frankly, I’m not even sure I could. Suffice to say I laughed at a joke about the Force, and in general there’s a good sense of bonhomie amid the good-vs-evil derring-do.

CREDITS
Director J.J. Abrams; Writers Lawrence Kasdan, Abrams and Michael Arndt; Cinematographer Dan Mindel; Starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Harrison Ford, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Carrie Fisher; Length 135 minutes.
Seen at Odeon Holloway, London, Sunday 20 December 2015.

Attack the Block (2011)

Possibly there are exceptions (I’m no connoisseur), but it seems that whenever aliens visit Earth, they stand in allegorically for some popular fear of the era. 1950s films did well trading on fears of an atomic age, while 1970s films were more concerned with loss of identity. In fact, this trope is well enough understood that in Attack the Block one of the disaffected urban youth at the centre of the film gets a speech acknowledging it. For those familiar with the newspaper headlines in the Britain of the 2010s, you’d expect the threat to allegorically represent the fear of immigrants or indeed of the aforesaid urban youth (“hoodies”, to use a popular term referencing a favoured item of clothing). However, Attack the Block is too metropolitan and knowing to be so simplistic: the hoodies, it turns out, are the heroes and the fear is of the state and its oppressive apparatus (the police… sorry, “the feds”).

There’s a lot to like about Joe Cornish’s feature film debut. He comes from a background as a comedian wryly satirising popular culture (particularly on his TV and radio shows with Adam Buxton), and plenty of that shines through here. Attack the Block is not precisely a comedy though it has strong comic elements; it’s more of an updated ‘creature feature’ with ridiculous hairy dog-like aliens, lots of splatter and gore, and most of all, that pervasively resonant allegory.

Our heroes in the fight against the alien menace are led by Moses (John Boyega) and introduced as the kind of nefarious ne’er-do-wells that the tabloids would have us believe are at the core of ‘broken Britain’: mugging virtuous white nurse Sam (Jodie Whittaker) at the edge of their council estate. However, the film swiftly pushes on from there, undercutting some of those initial assumptions and bringing all of these characters together in the fight against the real threat. Into this mix is introduced the real bad guy of the estate (drug dealer Hi-Hatz, who has the kids under his thumb) and his likeably stoned sidekick Ron (Nick Frost). It’s set against an aggressive soundtrack of disaffected urban music, and the script is packed with contemporary slang.

In a sense, these kids are the core of ‘broken Britain’, but it’s soon established that they are more the outcome of the malaise at this society’s heart rather than the cause, and it’s in them that the film places its trust. There aren’t many films that are more acute about the (psycho)geography of the typical inner-city council estate. This one is located near Oval tube station in South London, near the Elephant & Castle (where I first lived, also in former council estate housing, when I moved to London), and brings together a range of underprivileged people who aren’t all entirely cast out by society. It transpires for example that Sam’s key worker is resident on the same estate: even the burgeoning professional classes can’t always afford more on London’s steep property ladder. And though there’s some hint of community, the sense of bleak emptiness is more suggestive that the space of the council estate — its concrete entrances and tall buildings, winding bike ramps, lighting which switches itself off after only a few seconds — is set against humans and breaks down basic humanity, which of course makes the alien intrusion theme seem the more apt.

Perhaps then the actors are loaded down with a bit too much baggage, but they do well, especially Boyega as the kids’ leader. Attack the Block is a persuasive look at the dehumanising effect of this kind of ghettoised environment, and its inhabitants’ deeply-held fear of the police — albeit via the medium of the monster movie. This is one allegory which hasn’t yet been played out.

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CREDITS
Director/Writer Joe Cornish; Cinematographer Tom Townend; Starring John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Nick Frost; Length 88 minutes.
Seen at home (TV), London, Monday 27 May 2013.