A tepid twist in the mould of M Night Shyamalan and an attempt at social horror in the vein of Jordan Peele isn’t enough to save Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s ‘Antebellum’ (2020).
Supposedly set during the American Civil War where Janelle Monae’s Eden has just been recaptured after an attempt to flee slavery at a Louisiana cotton plantation, the film begins with a lush, highly aesthetic oppression set to a rousing instrumental as a black woman is brutally murdered by a Confederate overseer.
Seven or so minutes in and Bush and Renz’s trauma buffet has begun. On the menu is black women begging for death, being beaten, branded, raped, having their offspring kicked to death in their womb and committing suicide.
While the extent of slavery’s atrocities are surely untold and the fatigue black people feel from constantly consuming the violence meted on black bodies in film, reality and the news is well documented, ‘Antebellum’ mines this traumatic imagery in a film that isn’t worth the stress. To say much about this movie is to reveal its central plot twist but the pertinent points are that the film squanders what could have been a compelling premise. It is also derivate of Shyamalan, Haile Gerima (‘Sankofa’, 1993) and even ‘Westworld’ but this is already saying too much.
While some will argue that its depiction of modern day racist microaggressions, it’s motif of silencing black people especially black women, consideration of toxic white women as well as its subtext about the lingering effects of slavery are relevant and rousing, ‘Antebellum’ loses its good intentions in a mire of extreme violence, a badly drawn plot and shoddy character development in favour of an overreliance on aesthetics.
Rushed near the end, cringeworthy in scenes featuring a wasted but upbeat Gabourey Sidibe who stars alongside the solid ensemble of Kiersey Clemons, Jack Huston, Eric Lange, Jena Malone and Tongayi Chirisa, ‘Antebellum’ spends too much time torturing black women and not enough getting to the meat of its motion picture movement. ‘Antebellum’ (2020) is now showing at Ster-Kinekor Grove Mall.
– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; marthamukaiwa.com
