NYFF: Steve McQueen's "Mangrove"

by Jason Adams

Well we knew the party couldn't last forever -- it's 2020 after all, and there's serious work to be done. Last week the New York Film Festival officially opened with Lovers Rock, the second part of Steve McQueen's five-part "Small Axe" series of films all set within the same West Indian community in London where McQueen grew up (and which are set to air on the BBC and Amazon starting at the end of November) -- Lovers Rock, which I reviewed at this link, was set over the course of a single night, a single party, and reveled in tactility and sound, in the moment; it allowed its characters to lose themselves in song and sex and joy. Tonight the NYFF rewinds back us to premiere Small Axe's first part, titled Mangrove and based on the famous legal battle of 1970 involving the so-dubbed "Mangrove Nine," a group of local activists who were wrongly accused of inciting a riot by a corrupt and racist police department.

So no, no big party here -- this one's a courtroom drama. And a rip-roaring one at that... Although it takes its time becoming exactly that...

Mangrove is nearly twice as long as Lovers Rock at a little over two hours, and feels like, whaddya know, a proper full film all on its own. The first half introduces us to our Nine, beginning with our main focus and main character, Frank Crichlow (a deeply moving Shaun Parkes), the chef and restauranteur of the Mangrove restaurant which gives the "Nine" their name. We open on Crichlow opening his restaurant to a neighborhood hungry for something of their own -- their kind of food, a gathering space where they can feel comfortable. And it feels an immediate success -- just what the people wanted.

Of course the system can't stomach such an affront -- black people aren't allowed to forget their correct place, you see -- and it's not long before the jackbooted thugs of the local bobby parade start regularly crashing the proceedings. Quite literally -- the first hour is just Steve McQueen pulling out the rug from under any moment of peace... then taking a moment to smooth out the rug again... and then yanking it once again, one split second before peak smooth is reached. Crichlow & Co are never allowed to gather their wits -- its psychological terrorism in a Queen-issued black suit, with a particular viciousness assigned to the top cop PC Pulley (Sam Spruell), a real nasty piece of work.

As the head prick of the pin Pulley draws a storm of focus -- and god he's despicable -- but McQueen makes it clear that the whole system, full of Pulleys, is rotted out -- Crichlow is a man driven by hard work and decency and yet every justifiable step he takes to simply exist as any of his countrymen might is met with slamming doors and indifference, when not a rain of daily raids. The mounting injustice becomes suffocating -- another joyous black space spoiled by systemic menace; whereas Lovers Rock self-contained itself enough to appreciate a single moment of freedom Mangrove expands out and finds violence inextricable from the passage of time while being black.

As inequity and abuse swirls around the Mangrove more people get pulled into its orbit, most notably the Black Panther Altheia Jones-Lecointe (played with fiery intelligence and righteousness by Letitia Wright) -- this space that Crichlow hoped to keep apolitical is politicized against his wishes, which is of course the State's intention. There can be no innocence when the machines of society see your mere existence as guilt in itself. Crichlow's forced to fight back and the circles close in -- no peace without justice, no justice without peace, and everybody's screaming in a courtroom before you know it.

But the Nine do get their day(s) in court, and McQueen makes that time-worn cinematic spectacle feel fresh by focusing in on the true-story's weird asymmetric details -- the little box the pile of defendants are crammed into in an otherwise half-barren courtroom; the insufficient size of white lawyer Ian MacDonald's (Jack Lowden) itty wig perched atop his hippie hair-do -- as well as the by-then full-blown indignation of the circumstances. Watching this film on the same afternoon that Breonna Taylor's non-verdict was reached certainly gave my viewing an outside cast but it's one you can find on any afternoon, in any city -- this case was 50 years ago but is still being legislated yesterday, today, and tomorrow on every corner. Thank goodness Steve McQueen's here to show us.

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Comments

[Lynn Lee]

This sounds great. Steve McQueen is brilliant, but has always left me a bit cold - not sure why exactly, but he always seems to be at a remove from the actors/characters who are suffering so intensely. I can't explain it.

[Jess]

I'm excited for this series.