Our film reviewers below headed to the <a href="https://platformonline.uk/posts/social-realism-meets-sci-fi-at-the-bfi-london-film-festival-2023">BFI London Film Festival</a> to search for the films of the year for you to seek. Ranging from the big releases to smaller rewarding films, we arrange them according to our very own special categories.
<h5>Heavyweight Champion of the World Award</h5>
This year’s London Film Festival was dominated by the return of the heavy-weight auteur, with new films from Michael Mann, David Fincher, Todd Haynes, Hayao Miyazaki, Sofia Coppola, Wim Wenders, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Errol Morris, Catherine Breillat, Jonathan Glazer and even Victor Erice (his last film The Quince Tree Sun was released over 30 years ago).
But in a year where the future of cinema has come under existential threat – actors and writers <a href="https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/hollywood-actors-on-strike-why-sag-walkout-how-long-last-explained-2478793">striking for better pay</a> and better job security against the looming backdrop of artificial intelligence and the streaming boom – it’s fitting that one of the industry’s most revered and outspoken filmmakers returns with a late-career masterpiece.
At 81 years old, Martin Scorsese is finding a new lease of life thanks to an impressive late-career run in Silence (2016), The Irishman (2019) and now his latest American epic Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), an extraordinary dramatization of David Grann’s novel that systemically examines the industrialised gangsterism behind the 1920s Osage County murders of the local Native American population to powerful effect. As Scorsese said on the LFF red carpet when adapting these kinds of stories, “The aesthetics of it [the film] should enhance the journalistic idea”. Killers of the Flower Moon achieves this through a scope matched by unapologetic rage over historical injustice.
Killers of the Flower Moon is available to stream from January 2024 – TS 
<h5>Most Touching Story Award</h5>
In Past Lives, written and directed by Celine Song, we follow Greta Lee’s character Nora reconnecting with her childhood friend Hae Sung (played by Teo Yoo) from her youth in South Korea, where her family emigrated from to settle in Canada. We are taken back to scenes from their childhood together, then fast forward to their early adulthood where they find each other again, a virtual reunion filled with feeling and romantic potential. But, as life often reminds us, some things aren’t meant to be: the stars do not align and the couple drift apart once again.
As more time passes, Nora and Hae Sung settle into trajectories that separate and differentiate them, yet life brings them together again. Reconnecting with someone, something or some place that played a part in who you once were can be a challenging confrontation. How does it feel to observe or engage with what could have been? How will you deal with what you find? Past Lives explores just this, subtly and tenderly.
I often find myself wondering about what could have been if my parents made a different choice for their lives, our lives. What they had to let go. Who they would have been. In Past Lives, I see that being content doesn’t mean you are immune to imagining possibilities and mourning lost potential. There is so much feeling in this film, I loved it.
Past Lives is available to stream now – HH
<h5>The Everyday Evil Award for Global Trade</h5>
Any pact with the devil begins with an attractive proposition. Europa, directed by Austrian-Iranian Sudabeh Mortezai and set in a remote valley in Albania, begins with businesswoman Beate (Lilith Stangenberg) addressing a crowd of female university graduates to tell them they can be anything they want in life. Beate follows with remorseless zeal her mission on behalf of the multinational EUROPA company: to get the custom-bound farmers of a local village to sign away their land. So, be whatever you want to be, so long as it is within the terms and conditions stipulated in the contract. The precise business of the company is never stated, but Beate attempts to achieve their aims with a single-mindedness that begins with bonhomie and the promise to share the miracles of progress, but turns increasingly imploring, cajoling, then threatening, until finally relying on the brutal reality of force. This satire of contemporary neoliberalism exposes the smiling face of corporate practice to be the mask of an occupying power. Meanwhile, the local village heads of family maintain a power of refusal whose steadfastness attains an almost mystical quality.
Europa does not have a release date yet – LB

<h5>Best British Film Award</h5>
As well as the auteurs, a number of British films appeared in the programme, from crowd-pleasers like Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget to Molly Manning Walker’s immensely powerful debut on female adolescence and rape culture in How To Have Sex that left me emotionally drained exiting the cinema.
But two homegrown products occupied the opening and closing night gala slots representing two class ends of British society. First up was Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s stylish mystery drama about an Oxford Uni student (a type-cast Barry Keoghan) who gets drawn into the world of an aristocrat (Jacob Elordi) in his same year.
More successful was the closing night gala The Kitchen, a brilliant debut from Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares set in a dystopian London where all forms of social housing have been eradicated except for a rundown housing block, nicknamed <a href="https://platformonline.uk/posts/social-realism-meets-sci-fi-at-the-bfi-london-film-festival-2023">The Kitchen</a>, whose community refuses to move out despite orders from the authorities. The film centres on an unlikely relationship formed between Izi (Kane Robinson, better known by his rapper name Kano), who’s desperate to leave The Kitchen, and 12-year-old Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman, in an exceptional debut performance) who has lost his mother and is searching for familial stability. It includes an outstanding supporting role from football legend Ian Wright as the in-house DJ! Its references to Attack the Block (2011), Blade Runner (1982), Blue Story (2019) and television crime drama Top Boy (2011-2023) – which also stars Kano – add up to a very effective allegory that resoundingly speaks to the current climate of social exclusion, gentrification and knife crime in London. Crucially, it’s a film made by Londoners about London and we thoroughly recommended it when it drops on Netflix in January.
The Kitchen is available to stream from 19 January 2024 on Netflix – TS

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Bikeriders 2023 film still

<h5>“Hand Me the Tissues” Award for Most Tears in the Audience</h5>
 We go through life like rough-hewn lumps of rock, shaped by the impact from billions of years of astral explosions. Distant stars may draw us for a time into their orbit, before their light goes out and we are once more alone in the cold, dark solitude of the cosmos. This metaphor underlies All of Us Strangers, a relationship drama about the things we wish we could say to those who have long since left us, and the love we neglect while it is by our side. Andrew Haigh (45 Years) directs a dream team of Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell and star Andrew Scott, who render each character in the fine detail of their warmth and their flaws, their hopes and their traumas. Scott plays a middle-aged screenwriter whose encounter with a younger man prompts him to re-evaluate his life as a gay man and his relationship to his parents. In a story that blends fantasy, memory, feeling and reality, Scott embodies the subtle strength of a subjectivity that defines our relations to others at the same time that it inhibits our ability to fully reach them. It is a film of a devastating sadness and beauty.
All of Us Strangers is in cinemas from 26 January 2024 – LB
<h5>Stylish but Disappointing Award</h5>
The Bikeriders is a fictional film directed by Jeff Nichols and inspired by photojournalist Danny Lyon’s photo book of the same name. The photos depict the lives of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club of Chicago, a community on the outskirts of society who Lyon spent four years documenting.
Impenetrable and elusive, Lyon’s work gives us an insight to a lifestyle and people many will never encounter, let alone be welcomed into. I find the photographs of this fringe community fascinating and romantic, so I understand director and writer Jeff Nichols’ drive to create a fiction around these evocative photographs.
The result fails to inspire. This film features beautiful shots and an ensemble cast to match, but it’s tied together by a shallow narrative. There is something here about oral histories being held and stewarded by women, namely Jodie Comer’s character Kathy, but the focus persists on the central male characters, Benny (Austin Butler) and Johnny (Tom Hardy) playing out a tale about succession. The jumps in time, and the numerous underdeveloped (though intriguing) characters, left me wanting. Comer’s performance stands out the most and I wish more of the events of the film prioritised her perspective.
The Bikeriders’ release date has been postponed – HH
HH – <a href="https://platformonline.uk/author/halima-a-hassan">Halima A. Hassan</a> 
LB – <a href="https://platformonline.uk/author/louis-bayman">Louis Bayman</a> 
TS – Theo Smith

Past-Lives-Still-1 copy

As we come to the end of a turbulent year in global news, we look ahead to find radical joy, meaning and imagination in the cinema.

From heavyweights to debuts – The Platform&#8217;s 2023 film awards

While 2023 will go down in film history as the year that, inexplicably in my opinion, audiences chose Oppenheimer over The Flash, the BFI London Film Festival offers a chance to look ahead to the year to come. It is a prestigious affair, which means that it is dominated by big-name directors whose films will soon be queueing up for Oscars recognition, along with many lesser-known films that won&#8217;t make it to UK cinemas outside of the festival.
This year is especially notable for the number of distinguished directors lining up who are returning to the big screen for the first time in years. Wim Wenders makes a return with not one but two films: the documentary profile of artist Anselm Kiefer Anselm and the Tokyo-set drama Perfect Days. David Fincher teams up again with his co-writer from Seven for The Killer and Lukas Moodysson presents the sequel Together 99. Meanwhile Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes wins the prize for longest absence, coming a full 30 years since the Spanish director last made a feature film.
Joining them are Sofia Coppola’s biopic of Elvis’s wife, Priscilla, Richard Linklater’s neo-noir comedy Hit Man and festival favourite Koreeda with Monster. Steve McQueen widens his epic vision after the Small Axe film series that chronicled racism and immigration in the UK, with Occupied City. Occupied City is a four-and-a-half-hour chronicle of 130 locations in Amsterdam, contrasting their present-day to historical footage when they still hosted the persecuted Jewish community. The Nazi past is also revisited in Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, which promises a more dreamlike or hallucinatory experience than McQueen’s exploration of archival memory.
If instead it is actors who draw you to the cinema, then you will keenly await All of Us Strangers, an intimate portrait of a friendship that brings Andrew Scott (the ‘hot priest’ from Fleabag) together with man of the moment Paul Mescal. Bradley Cooper stars in and directs Maestro, about the life of legendary 20th century conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick feature in the Australian Outback thriller The Royal Hotel, reuniting Garner with director Kitty Green after the excellent study of workplace abuse The Assistant.

The film that picked up the greatest buzz over the summer festival circuit is Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things. Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo star in this Victorian-set sci-fi adaptation of Scottish writer Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel. Lanthimos has made a career in staging the unruly clash between imprisoning convention and sexual desire, each time in a more outlandish setting. Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon instead plays its historical re-enactment in a more sombre key, recounting one of the most unremittingly grim episodes in the genocide of the Native American population – with Lily Gladstone and <a href="https://platformonline.uk/posts/how-david-attenborough-is-getting-planet-earth-wrong">Leonardo DiCaprio</a> playing the leads. Intersecting with the discovery of oil in Oklahoma and the beginnings of the FBI, the story is a reminder of the brutality underlying capitalism, racism and state force.

the-kitchen-kano-kaluuya

The-kitchen-kano-kaluuya

Two British productions provide the opening and closing night galas, neatly representing two contrasting views of the nation. The first is Saltburn, a tale of privilege and desire in Oxford University with an ensemble cast that includes Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant. The second is The Kitchen, the directorial debut of actor Daniel Kaluuya. Set on an estate in 2040, the film is a near-future critique of gentrification and its effect on working class family and community.
You may have noticed that both The Kitchen and Poor Things use sci-fi to insert flights of creative imagination in the otherwise more imprisoning genres of, respectively, social realism and costume drama. This seems in fact to constitute a new trend. Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal are taken into space in the relationship drama Foe, while the 80s-set coming of age story Croma Kid promises to be ‘the <a href="https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=croma-kid-lff23">only Dominican-set scifi</a> you will see this year’ according to the BFI’s programme. Add to this the romance Fingernail and the character study Sky Peals and sci-fi is now boldly going into genres where it had rarely gone before. While the sci-fi boom of the 50s came at a time of the space race and the atom bomb, this intimate, lower-budget sci-fi is perhaps more appropriate to a time when technological change has more lowly ambitions than the post-war attempt to conquer the universe.
Before we go, we would like to draw your attention some films that are unlikely to make it to the multiplex – but will be well worth your time to seek out. Cobweb is a 70s-set thriller comedy amid the South Korean film industry. Housekeeping for Beginners provides a queer perspective on status and sexuality in what is the latest entry from the small but impressive Macedonian film industry. Ryusuke Hamaguchi, director of the slow, beautiful Drive My Car, takes a poetic look at community and the environment in Evil Does Not Exist. Europa promises a thrilling critique of neoliberal capital and rural landscapes by Austrian-Iranian director Sudabeh Mortezai. Starve Acre is a return for Daniel Kokotajlo after his impressive debut Apostasy. While Apostasy examined the cult mindset of a Jehovah’s Witness, Starve Acre sees him move more firmly into folk horror, a genre which is now everywhere, offering as it does the chance to expose the unsettling weirdness underlying the everyday habits we take for granted.
See <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526164926/folk-horror-on-film/">new book</a>, Folk horror on film: Return of the British repressed, edited by Kevin J. Donnelly and Louis Bayman, out this October. The BFI London Film Festival takes place <a href="https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp">4 to 15 October 2023</a>.
<pre>Featured photo: Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)</pre>

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Our film editor Louis Bayman previews the 67th BFI London Film Festival. Here’s what to look out for.

Social realism meets sci-fi at the BFI London Film Festival 2023

* Contains mild spoilers
During a period of bleak uncertainty, where life as we know it is transforming into a kind of dystopian horror, Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia does not seek to offer a comforting hand – but instead holds up a mirror to our society of greed. I am referring to his recent thriller The Platform, added to Netflix at the beginning of March this year, where Gaztelu-Urrutia delivers a sickening commentary on class structure and mankind’s insatiable appetite in this horror feast.
When our lead character, Goreng (Ivan Massagué) wakes up to find himself in a vertical prison of incalculable levels, he is horrified to discover the only form of nourishment is an extravagant banquet, travelling down the tower of two-person cells on a platform. The horror derives from the concept of equal distribution, seemingly non-existent within these concrete walls, as the prisoners on the upper levels indulge leaving the victims of the lower levels to starve. Goreng hopes to change the injustice that permeates the prison, but soon discovers that our selfish instincts are a lot harder to tame than he expected.
Gaztelu-Urrutia’s concept is a disturbing illustration of class structure for the senses and certainly entices audiences to question the morality of such practices. Its premise is, of course, bizarre and barbaric but also incredibly accurate. A fundamental flaw of the universal class system is its entitlement, mirrored perfectly by Gaztelu-Urrutia’s storytelling, as this prison’s occupants do not earn their place at the highest level but are merely placed there. Those at the top behave with hostility and have little respect for those below them, their gluttony draining the food from the platform and their contempt showering the remaining scraps with their own bodily fluids. This metaphor carries a horrifying depiction of a reality steeped in classism and unjust privilege.
Writers David Desola and Pedro Rivero make certain we understand the important messages which echo our current civilisation with their ‘matter of fact’ scriptwriting. The moral of the film is encapsulated entirely in one particular piece of dialogue when Goreng’s fellow inmate Imoguiri (Antonia San Juan) states, “if everybody ate only what they needed, the food would get to the lowest level.” This allegory is about as subtle as a brick through a window, and in fact arrives like a perfect accident, as the film was in development long before the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-food-bank-stockpile-panic-buying-donations-uk-cases-outbreak-a9393201.html">stockpiling</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/202003/why-are-we-panic-buying-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic">panic buying</a> that hit the UK in March during the escalation of the coronavirus pandemic, illustrating that the world needs to listen to these lessons now more than ever.
The fact the themes of the film are in plain sight points to cinema’s freedom to address issues that many choose to turn a blind eye to. Although the script could have benefitted from more subtlety in order to encourage moral contemplation, The Platform’s lack of restraint holds our attention and lends itself perfectly to Netflix. Gaztelu-Urrutia uses this film as a soapbox at a time when society is fixed in its traditional class structure. Gaztelu-Urrutia excels in providing a clear and frank visualisation of our own selfishness. The nauseating visuals and stomach-turning sound design are enough to make audiences think twice about stockpiling food, as they will lose their appetite within the first five minutes of the film. This caricature of the survival instinct uncomfortably displays the type of class entitlement we see every day on the news.
The film’s messages aren’t the only thing lacking subtlety in this fever dream thriller. Gaztelu-Urrutia and his crew effectively convey anxiety and dread through a claustrophobic set design and invasive cinematography. One of the most striking attributes is the film’s dramatic lighting changes, where at times we are engulfed in a sea of red, reminiscent of the Italian Giallo horror which seeks to conjure feelings of unease and paranoia through its colour palette. The theme of decay is also made prevalent through other aesthetic choices, the many close-ups of food that feature throughout alluding to abandoned war zones and decomposing landscapes, illustrating the repercussions of our own self-interest. Even shots of life are muted with a dull hue, as a close-up of Goreng’s eye at the very beginning of the film hints at a loss of spirit in its lack of colour and depth. The Platform’s attention to detail achieves multiple atmospheres and spaces while being restricted to the same four walls. The cast, particularly Massagué and Zorion Eguileor, seem anything but trapped, as their performances are powerful and their chemistry palpable.
Without giving too much away, The Platform’s conclusion probably asks more questions than it answers. Although it gives audiences the freedom of interpretation it also seems a lacklustre ending to an intense narrative. No one could accuse the ending of being predictable, but it is not fully satisfying and left me feeling hungry for more. It seems Gaztelu-Urrutia sends a message that is not quite as bleak, hinting at a chance of redemption for humanity and providing a portal to a less hostile and selfish world, if only its citizens can find the key to unlock it.
The Platform perfectly utilises sensory horror and explicit gore to communicate its all too relevant messages. It projects an ugly side of humanity, leaving it to rot on screen, until it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. This is until the film’s conclusion where audiences are given the freedom to write their own ending. At such a desperate point in history, we need to see this film as a turning point for our attitudes towards class, privilege and entitlement, and remedy the problems they cause through mutual kindness and respect for one another, regardless of the level we find ourselves on.
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<pre>Photo Credit: The Platform film / Netflix</pre>

The Platform Film

Netflix horror &#8216;The Platform&#8217; directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia shows us the ugly face of class and capitalism.

The Platform Film: A Feast of Greed and Privilege

Upon learning of <a href="https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/netflix-when-they-see-us-most-watched-show-premiere-1203241480/">the success</a> of her 2019 Netflix mini-series <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80200549">When They See Us</a>, Academy Award-nominated American director Ava DuVernay tweeted, “Imagine believing the world doesn’t care about the real stories of black people&#8230; Our stories matter and can move across the globe.”
The four-episode series dramatises the true story of the Central Park Five, the name given to the five black and Latino boys (Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise) wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of the Central Park Jogger, white 28-year-old investment banker Trisha Meili. Though DuVernay calls her new project “a new truth for a new day”, it tells a tragic yet familiar story of an attempted public lynching.
<h5>The historic “myth of the black rapist”</h5>
The mini-series has been a commercial and critical success, earning <a href="https://www.goldderby.com/article/2019/when-they-see-us-emmy-nominations-history-acting-netflix-news">16 Emmy nominations</a>, including eight in the acting categories and eight in the writing and directing categories. Last night its 21-year-old lead Jharrel Jerome took home the award for Outstanding Lead Actor, and <a href="https://www.emmys.com/video/71st-emmy-awards-outstanding-lead-actor-limited-series-or-movie">paid tribute to the Exonerated Five</a> in his acceptance speech – all of whom were present in the audience and thanked him with a standing ovation.
When They See Us fits aptly into DuVernay’s retrospective on race relations in the US. Along with Selma (2014) and her <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/13th-americas-profitable-legal-slavery/">2016 documentary 13th</a>, When They See Us allows DuVernay to assert herself as leading a social justice movement that has continued to re-examine policies targeting black and Latino people in the United States.
With this series, DuVernay also joins a lineage of black women activists like Ida B. Wells and Angela Davis in exploring what Davis calls the “myth of the black rapist”, which has pervaded American society since Reconstruction and the beginnings of the Jim Crow South. Civil rights activist and author of Southern Horrors (1892), The Red Record (1895) and Mob Rule in New Orleans (1900), Ida B. Wells highlights that the image of the black male rapist was used to justify the lynching of members of the black community. Wells writes in The Red Record that when it came to accusing black men of such crimes, “the white people concluded it was unnecessary to wait for the result of the investigation – that it was preferable to hang the accused first and try him afterward” (p.70). Accusing black men of raping white women was, according to Wells, a political and economic tool to combat black upward mobility and citizenship. Eighty years later, University of California professor and political activist Angela Davis wrote of the institutionalisation of this myth in her book Women, Race, and Class (1983). She asserts, “the rape charge turned out to be the most powerful of several attempts to justify the lynching of Black people” (p.185). As American society was built on white male supremacy, Davis finds that the enduring fiction of black men as rapists continues to legitimise excessive violence in defence of women’s virtue (p.187).
This myth of the black male rapist reverberates throughout 20th- and 21st-century American politics and culture from the true stories of the Scottsboro Boys, nine black teens falsely accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931, to the brutal murder of 14-year old Emmett Till in 1955, falsely accused of flirting with a white woman in Mississippi. The miscarriage of justice during the Scottsboro Boys trial and Till’s murder, and the initial acquittal of his killers, still symbolise the long tradition of racial bias in the criminal justice system. Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-Prize winning best seller To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) examines racism in the criminal justice system in its depiction of a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama, while James Baldwin’s novel <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/editors-picks-for-your-2019-reading-list/">If Beale Street Could Talk (1974)</a>, adapted as <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/if-beale-street-could-talk-an-unusual-protest-film/">Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-nominated film in 2018</a>, explores the enduring love between Fonny and Trish after a white police officer frames Fonny for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman.
Along with the omnipresent myth of the black male rapist in the American psyche, decades of high unemployment, police corruption and mob violence were combined to galvanise the public against the Five as well. New York City’s rising crime rate throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s was originally attributed to police corruption and rising unemployment in the mid-‘70s, <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2014/08/07/the-rise-and-fall-of-crime-in-new-york-city-a-timeline/">pushing the city towards bankruptcy</a>. The late-‘70s crime wave, fuelled by the David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz murders, blackouts and lootings, was followed by the crack cocaine epidemic and racially-motivated mob violence of the ‘80s. Black MTA worker Willie Turks was killed by a mob of white men in Brooklyn in 1982; Michael Griffin was murdered in 1986 while being attacked by white men in the predominantly white community of Howard Beach, Queens; and a mob of white male teens in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, targeted and then shot 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2014/08/07/the-rise-and-fall-of-crime-in-new-york-city-a-timeline/">in 1986</a>. The hysteria around the myth of the black male rapist and surrounding black and Latino men in general is as old as the United States itself.
Seven years after Ken and Sarah Burns’ documentary <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2380247/">The Central Park Five</a>, Ava DuVernay’s <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80200549">When They See Us</a> provides a gripping indictment of a nation still captive to racist mass hysteria. The true events of When They See Us echo many of the real and fictionalised stories that continue to shape black and Latino communities in the US. DuVernay tactfully uses Donald Trump’s role in the persecution of the Five to link his manipulation of the myth of the black rapist to his political campaign and presidency 30 years later. During the trial, real estate developer <a href="https://time.com/5597843/central-park-five-trump-history">Donald Trump spent $85,000 placing ads in four newspapers</a> calling for the lynching of the Five, with the exclamation, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY! BRING BACK THE POLICE!” In 2015, President Trump would rely not only on the myth of the black rapist, but he would also invoke the myth of the Mexican rapist sent illegally to the US to begin his presidential campaign. In her illustration of Trump’s central role in the miscarriage of justice against the Five, DuVernay signals that this new story is a centuries-long call for the lynching of black and Latino men from those within the highest echelons of power.
<h5>Old stories of injustice for a new day</h5>
When They See Us succeeds not because of its “new truth for a new day” nor for its harrowing depiction of the US criminal (in)justice system. Rather, the mini-series is most spell-binding because of its intimate portrayal of the boys’ commitment to each other, their fraying relationships with their communities, and the inner workings of their personal lives within a penal system and society that has abused them.
The first two episodes sweep the boys through the night of the rape, where they all gather with a large group of peers at the park on the night of Meili’s brutalisation. The episodes then subject viewers to the chaos of the police’s reckless search for the attackers and dramatise what is the most difficult part of the Five’s story: their confession to the crime, despite later claiming their innocence. The first and second episodes reflect <a href="https://www.innocenceproject.org/why-are-youth-susceptible-to-false-confessions">The Innocence Project’s findings</a> that “in the past 25 years, 38% of exonerations of crimes allegedly committed by youth involved false confessions&#8230; when you are imposing those techniques on an individual who is young, who is intellectually vulnerable, the capacity of the person to withstand the process is easily overcome.”
In the mini-series, Linda Fairstein, attorney, author and inspiration for the character of Olivia Benson in Law and Order: SVU, is positioned at the epicentre of a plan to scapegoat the boys through utilising deceptive confessionary techniques. DuVernay depicts Fairstein (played Felicity Huffman) as instigating the boys’ false confessions and exemplifying the worst-case scenario of weaponising the real tragedy of Meili’s brutal rape to solidify her authority within the Manhattan sex crimes unit. Despite no physical evidence tying the boys to the crime, they are convicted and sentenced to between 5 and 15 years in juvenile detention or prison. It was only <a href="https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a28038525/matias-reyes-central-park-five-jogger/">Matias Reyes’ 2002 confession</a> – not continued police investigations – that exonerated the boys of their conviction.
The third and fourth parts of the series balance DuVernay’s social commentary on the savagery of the US criminal justice systems with the boys’ personal and familial relationships, as they are released from confinement and grapple with their public images as rapists. Antron (Caleel Harris) confides in his mother, played by Emmy-nominated Marsha Stephanie Blake, with, “I feel like the whole world hate us.” Blake’s Linda McCray compassionately responds, “I love you enough to make up for everybody.” These poignant, and at times fragile, personal connections transform When They See Us from a show that is agonising to watch to one that enthrals, as the series draws the audience into the inner lives of these boys, their communities and their families.
These more intimate moments shape the second half of the mini-series and reach its crescendo with Jharrel Jerome’s Korey Wise, the eldest of the Five, who at 16 was sentenced not to juvenile detention but adult prison. His relationship with his mother and his connection to his transgender sister Marci Wise (played by Isis King) are some of the most memorable arcs in the mini-series, succeeding in aligning different kinds of persecution, alienation and courage. Jerome, now the winner of the Emmy, gives a heartbreaking portrayal of a young man trapped by the system, yet ultimately able to reclaim a part of his soul still untouched by the brutality around him.
For audiences unfamiliar with the indelible mark the myth of the black male rapist has left on American society, When They See Us moves people across the globe to see and protect black humanity. The series is also an opportunity for the Exonerated Five, as they are consciously re-named in the post-show Oprah interview – an essential afterword to the mini-series – to bring their experiences to new audiences and advocate for much-needed criminal justice reforms. Yet for those fully aware of the depth of this history and those who continue to live in fear of persecution by law enforcement, When They See Us may be triggering and leave us craving for more.
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<pre>Photo Credit: Netflix</pre>

When They See Us &#8211; Netflix Image

Ava DuVernay’s moving mini-series broke Netflix records and portrayed the very real consequences of a centuries-old racist myth.

The Exonerated Five: How Ava DuVernay Captured a Harrowing History and Captivated Netflix Audiences

Winner of Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes, and new Netflix release, Roma is the latest film directed by Mexican Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. The film takes place in the Colonia Roma neighbourhood of Mexico City, where Cuarón grew up. The narrative takes place in Mexico after the country hosted the 1968 Olympics, the games that impassioned the student movement and eventually led to the <a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwpmmw/the-1971-student-massacre-that-mexico-would-rather-forget">massacre of students in 1971</a>. It also offers an interesting comparison to the Brazilian movie, The Second Mother, directed by Anna Muylaert in 2015. Both productions explore the heritage of slavery in Latin America from the perspective of housekeepers who are exploited by colonial racism.
In Roma, the housekeeper Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) occupies a “place at the family table” but is repeatedly reminded of her status. The family shows their affection to Cleo as they constantly declare “I love you”, but are shown in the next moment asking her to cook or clean for them. Boundaries are clearly set between them, even though Cleo is in the bosom of the family. Cleo is a passive subject in the action, her passivity marking a sign of systematic exploitation indicated by the words, “I would like to be dead.”
The maid’s story is similar to that of Libo, who worked in director Cuarón’s own family, and whose perspective informs the script. As Cuarón revisits his memories of Libo, he needs to distinguish his own privileged point of view from hers, a poor, indigenous woman subject to systematic racism. The camera follows the action in scenes that comprise of a single, one-take shot (one of the director’s notable techniques).
The filmmaker does not attempt to offer a tribute to Libo as an individual. Latin American countries have thousands of such “Cleos”, whose position is evidence of an unjust hierarchy. The sense of personal testimony in Cuarón’s film makes a political statement about class inequality and working conditions, as does his casting of a non-professional native Mexican, Yalitza Aparicio, in a role which embodies resilience.
The domestic working system that Cuarón explores reflects how affluent white classes across Latin America are afforded the best education and job opportunities, while people of colour face poverty, subservient jobs and racial bias. This stems from the colonial era, between the <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/66110">16th and 19th century</a>, when indigenous and African people were enslaved by white European colonists. To this day, indigenous people and <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/the-return-of-the-white-male-elite-in-brazil">Afro-descendants</a> continue to feel the effects of colonial oppression.
The maids in Roma live in a modest small room in the back of the house, historically related to the shanties where slaves used to sleep during this colonial period. They live where they work and receive a low salary, undertaking exhausting journeys without rest, and enduring a heavy workload, echoing the legacy of racialised slavery.
According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/10/mexico-city-domestic-workers-life-lesser-person">resources</a>, in 2015 there were about 23 million domestic workers in Mexico, often indigenous women. That same year, Brazil established a <a href="https://economia.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,tres-anos-depois-de-lei-70-das-domesticas-estao-na-informalidade,70002444821">law in defence</a> of domestic workers which granted their rights – such as unemployment insurance, limits on working hours and paid holidays – yet only a minority of employers abide by it today.
The female Brazilian director Muylaert released a film called The Second Mother in 2015, where she also revisited her childhood memories of a maid exploited by an upper-middle-class family. In her film, the leading character Val (Regina Casé), a domestic worker, undergoes a personal transformation upon the arrival of her daughter Jessica, both of whom live in the small back room of the house.
Jessica confronts Val’s exploitation and racial discrimination, while her mother lectures her about “the dos and don’ts” of a servant. As the daughter of a servant, a submissive attitude is expected from her, while her masters make fun of her plans for her future. At one point Val states: “There’s no need to explain, we are born knowing what we can and can’t do.” These unspoken laws put people of colour at the bottom of society; despite there being no segregation law, they are ghettoised, particularly in Brazil. But Jessica eventually rebels against her treatment and demands better conditions. 
The ongoing reality of these two cinematic stories is highlighted by the campaign, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/euempregadadomestica/">Eu, Empregada Doméstica</a> (Me, The Maid) by activist Preta Rara, where she posts the anonymous testimonies of genuine maids. Diverse stories describe the cruelty of the rich against poorer women, including making the servants eat with separate cutlery or outside the house.
The Second Mother helped spark the discussion about racial discrimination and gender inequality. Muylaert achieved acclaim from critics and awards worldwide, including the <a href="https://platformonline.uk/articles/berlin-film-festival-2018-theatres-of-war-terror-and-faith">Berlinale</a>, Sundance and Critic&#8217;s Choice Awards. The movie helped establish women’s presence in the film industry, as Muylaert became the first female director in 30 years to be pre-selected as Brazil’s deputy entrant for the Oscars.
Although both movies portray similar situations common to women of colour in Latin America, the most notable difference in both films is one of style. Cuarón’s film explores camera movement – his choice of black and white cinematography gives the film a poetic quality. His techniques focus on the implicit meanings within images and gestures that make dialogue unnecessary.
Meanwhile, Muylaert’s movie pays close attention to dialogue and casts Regina Casé – a well-known comic actress – as the lead character. Casé’s performance adds a sense of naturalness to the breakthrough moments of critical awareness achieved by the character Val. The director opted for static takes from the kitchen where most of the action takes place, in order to tell the story from the servant&#8217;s point of view and, once more, to use her as a reminder of the servant’s “rightful” place. In contrast, repeated airplanes flying overhead give Cuarón’s Roma a sense of fluidity. Muylaert instead incorporates the idea of change as the audience follows Val’s growing realisation of her own oppression.
Roma deservedly won Best Foreign Film at the 2019 Golden Globes and is predicted to win multiple Oscar nominations in February – while its Netflix platform provides a prominent stage for a foreign movie. Both Roma and The Second Mother are important tools for opening up the discussion on domestic workers globally, scrutinising abuse and residual colonial racism in Latin America.
However, it also shows a lack of representation in the cinema industry, as ‘Masters of Big Houses’ are needed to tell the story of the working classes of the shanties. From class inequality to international relations, Latin America still suffers from the slumdog complex, which values the knowledge and production of white Europeans above their own. Nevertheless, Roma is a Mexican movie spoken in a combination of Mixtec and Spanish languages, and so it represents a political stand against the mainstream conventions in the cinema industry, while telling an uncomfortable truth in the form of a poetic verse.
<pre>Photo Credit: Roma / Netflix</pre>

Roma &#8211; Netflix

Latin American cinema gets to grips with the legacy of colonialism