That thing with Cleopatra in Netflix

The thing with the black Cleopatra is that it shows how we black suffer from the same shortsightedness as the white folks; since they have multiple cases of miss representation, and the war against it has been bloody. True is white people blackface anything they need or want, in order to at least appear more accurate; but that’s not a need for this Jada Pinkett fiasco, since the basis here is that Egyptians were black.

That’s even partially true, because the XXV dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs were Kushites; that means, actual Sudanese people, darks as the deepest night. But it is also true that Cleopatra was not even ethnically Egyptian but Greek (Macedonian); so this inaccuracy is related to that other problem of skin dysmorphia, understandable in a race so despised as the blacks in America. Of course we may claim that some people grow over they childhood traumas and struggles, becoming reasonable adults; but that’s not the natural case in that elite specialized in stupidity, like the cronies of art industry in America; who live of those traumas, and this fear —as the devil— of a solution that prompts them to actual jobs.

It’s not like that industry doesn’t enslave them, as the church with their religious orders and priesthood; but it precisely lures them with this idea that they’re not working but teaching us with their superiority, in exchange of a bunch of devalued printed paper. So that’s how we got these superficial personalities, so empties that need to hook to any narrative they can understand; which by the way, can’t be too deep, or they would not be able of that understanding.

That’s the case of those blacks, who need the fat walls of the pyramids to feel greats like the Greeks they love; simply because they can’t understand the hermeneutical complexity of sub-Saharan  cosmologies, as they can’t believe there is subtlety in cults. Of course that’s their ineptitude, but they are the ones with access to that money, for which they have to produce anything; it’s not that they need to produce something solid but that appears solid enough, and nothing like this appearance of deepness in an Egyptian link.

That’s not new, it’s even a tradition started by African scholars, who dismissed their own cosmologies; trying to thicken their divination systems with that Egyptian link, without see the mistake of reducing those systems to the same practice of divination. A religious complex is an hermeneutical order for existential references, with practical subproducts like the divination and magic implicit on it; but those scholars are from a time of European rational positivism. That explain why those scholars couldn’t understand the deep scope of their cosmology, if even Europeans couldn’t understand theirs; worse still in a case of frank stupidity, like this of the crony elite of Hollywood celebrities, as Jada Pinkett and Netflix.

At the end, those scholars have had the time to correct their inputs, because they rely in science; but that’s not the case of these celebrities of today, who doesn’t have had that time, nor they rely in science either. Anyway, the worst part of stupidity is the arrogance, and so that’s the problem with this celebrity’s elitism; as the actress who impersonates Cleopatra called the critics to simply don’t see the program. That’s just why Capitalism is so important, as is the market what sets the rationality and not the other way around; something that may looks superficial now because it’s just a mediocre art, but that would be too late when reaching actual politics and economy.

It looks like that arrogance was a response to abusive criticisms, but it’s still arrogance and shows the failure to understand reality; and so those abusive criticisms were stimulated precisely for that arrogance, as a proof of its counter productivity. That’s then the problem with dysmorphia as a root of political  legitimacy, because it solves nothing but complicates everything; as —as elders and traditions always say— it’s better the dignity of self-growth and acceptance, even if the situation is not too inviting.

Passing

This is a strange film, that gives mixed experiences, from aesthetic exaltation to a deficient dramaturgy; which is already strange, because as an adaptation of a novel (1929), it should have resolved its dramaturgy. This is not precisely because of the stylistic excess, which the English language does not allow in its North American syntax; but that cinema does stimulate, because of the aesthetic possibilities with which photography affects drama.

Passing tells of two black girlfriends, who meet again in a  New York subject to segregation laws;  and  one of which passes for white, in one of the most recurrent existential dramas of American culture. That can be a bit contrived for other cultures outside the North American, laxer in their racism: for in truth, American racism is virulent and reinforced by political rigorism,  in a strange and explosive mixture;  which links rational simplification to the ferocity of an impoverished class, such as the early Irish migration, in competition with emancipated blacks.

Hence the meticulous code of the drop of black blood, which discourages and punishes any effort at integration; giving rise to dramas like this one by Passing, as early  in the cinema as in 1934, with Imitation of Life. This dilemma may still not be understandable, because the pernicious reduction of the Negro to its most impoverished class; without the strip of political and  economic ambiguity, in which people  relate to each other beyond their race.

The film does not resolve  this context, unbalancing its dramaturgy, wallowing in its own moral supremacism; although it does manage to break the stereotype of the indigent black, with a relatively prosperous and snobbish bourgeoisie.  The original novel develops  the existential  impact of contradiction, when people lie about themselves; but the film fails to  resolve that, with the simple overlap of elements not directly related to each other, without the required developments.

An example of this is the reluctance of the protagonist to face the dilemma in its political dimension, as a family; being a social activist, involved in an organization reminiscent of the NAACP. Perhaps the object is a critique of the snobbery and limitations of that black liberal bourgeoisie, for its lack of commitment; that not only did it not pour its resources —not that it had many— into its own community, concentrated on its own elitism.

Nor does the casting of the protagonists help, with two actresses who hardly ever pass for white; which is irrelevant in theater or television, but not in the greater realism of cinema, because the conventions to which it responds. That and the hysterical volatility of the current political context, threatens a serene perception of the history the film narrates; which otherwise would have been able  to channel a powerful drama, just limiting itself to being cinema.

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The film does excel in dazzling photography, bringing out the best of black and white, and its epochal recreation; although that results in the greater slowness of a poorly resolved dramaturgy, which gives the feeling of emptiness. That may be the problem of the excessive aestheticization of drama, which original violence does not require poetics nor transcendentalism; as a false styling of black cinema,  which resolves in its own existential inconsistency, trying to pass for intellectual (white). It is the same excess that unnecessarily thickens interesting experiments, such as  that of Daughters of Dust (1991); and with what it question that same consistency they claim, disdaining their own dramatic elements; which are not intellectual but existential, reproducing the contradiction that affects American intellectualism, in its artificiality.

In short, it is not only in the upper middle class  —and those which seek to integrate it— that  idealistic reverie flourishes; it is the one that has resources to waste on it, or to distort its perception of reality with false priorities, nor less false humanism. The overlooked reference to the NAACP in this film may remind us of this, precisely because of the political ambiguity of its origin; like that false bourgeoisie of Harlem, which fails again and again to understand its own contradictions.

Beloved

This film  is from 1998, based on the successful novel with the same name by Tony Morrison; and that is how we know from the beginning that it will be a dramatic experience, but existential above all, not political. Normally the reviews emphasize the political and historical aspect of the film, based on the experience of slavery; but Morrison, who is a particular kind of writer, has never reduced her literature to denunciation, although he does not shy away from it either.

That is what makes this literature effective, avoiding moral simplifications in favor of the existential deeps; with a  dramatic projection that can discard unnecessary contradiction, and concentrate on what matters. After all, the political problem is no  less important in Morrison, it simply does not hinder; and it is even more efficient, laying bare the terrible existential precariousness that produces the drama.

Beloved is the story of a woman crushed by atrocity, both against her and committed by herself; because atrocity is the experience she goes through, and explains each of her acts, in a kind of nature. Probably the most powerful parliament in the film is also imperceptible, because its stoicism; when the man dodges her for the heinous acts she had make,  and she reminds him that she can survive his absence, because she is the heinous.

The film is gore, recreating that somber atmosphere of American gothic, without easy recurrences like voodoo; and dwelling —more than the novel— on those elements that give aesthetic meaning to American romanticism. That may be because the author is white, and so he can see elements that pass imperceptibly to blacks about themselves; at least  in this case, as one of those in which the approach is respectful and not patronizing.

The film stars Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey, who make a glorious couple beyond their characters; they provide an accurate  portrait  of blackness, in the hardness and tenderness of that atrocious life that surrounds them. The director, Jonathan Demme, achieves in that respect an appropriate portrait of the reality that frames the drama; perhaps because of his experience at the time of this film, which includes titles such as The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia.

Of the rest of the cast, the two daughters of the protagonist stand out, as a no less important dramatic support; and that in charge of lesser-known actresses, they nevertheless their characterizations are parallels to the protagonists. Make no mistake, Kimberly Elise Trammel and Thandiwe Newton will give a lot to talk about in their careers, and their performances are magnificent; next to them, a sublime Beah Richards, who directs the choir of this spiritual with the precise gestures that the experience gives to her. The rest are choristers, choreographed with pinpoint precision, to express the spiritual  transcendence of the black; without ever being reduced to mere picturesqueness, like a cantata that recalls the baroque masses in their density and beauty.

It is, in short, a film that will allow the world a real approach to the American blackness, without getting entangled in its manipulation; directly accessing the historical center of  that  spirit, but avoiding everything that clouds it in that manipulation. It is not for nothing that Morrison, who is the original author, belongs to that  special school of black literature; that not being able to afford white transcendentalist pessimism, is pushed to the existential pragmatism in her reflection.

 

African Folktales & The Brave ones

In a time of false representation and inclusivity, Netflix offers an approach to African literary cinema; not needing the conventional rhetoric, recreates the African in all its splendor and dignity. These are not folkloric themes, which perpetuate the traditional clichés about the relationship with nature and color; but mature and contemporary literature, which can go to its popular traditions, without losing an iota of this contemporaneity.

Not  that this is new or strange, in a continent that has in fact contributed classics to universal literature;  but it has lacked fair representation, as a lack now compensated, to the greater joy of all. As said, African folktales is then a series of tales not exactly folkloric, but very literary;  maybe due to  its dramatic efficacy  that does not resort to sociological discourses, but to the very complexity of the real.

Perhaps then this is a cultural prerogative of the mother continent, in which the past does not disappear;  smiling instead in any corner, while maintaining this appeal that gives meaning to his art, not corrupted yet with conceptual glimpses. Africa is thus an exotic continent, not because of the fauna that is seen in any zoo, nor the clothes that the rest of the West imports; but because of this faculty of a still human culture, which resolves its existential drama in the lives of people and not in speeches.

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That is what undoubtedly feeds its wonderful art, in this series that also brings fresh faces to the screen; apart from a spectacular cinematography, apo supported by the beauty and immensity of the continent. To give an idea  –if  that were possible– these stories remind of those of Malá Straná, even in their strange contemporaneity; all in a visual language that have not issues with social contrasts but does not overexploit them either, because it is art and not a discourse.

If any black person still feels the need to be represented, then they should look at this beauty of his mother continent; instead of stuffing themselves into other people's silks and powdered wigs, of which should be ashamed like of a minstrel.  African Folktales  is not an entirely  commercial product, but a collaboration between UNESCO and NETFLIX; so it is another cultural grant project, which nevertheless  –in this case– stands out for its efficiency.

That's probably because it arises in the narrow strip where popular culture lacks the resources to specialize; very different from that other where popular culture already disappears in its corruption, selling itself as what it is not. In any case, this is efficient in that literary vitality of its cinematography, already disappeared for the rest of the  West; perhaps because of that precariousness so unromantic of its environment, which is what sustains its art, with its slow and difficult integration into the world.

Of course, being from Netflix there is a whole section of African films and series, which knows glory and dishonor; but in a market saturated by the expensive trifle of Black Panther, the  action and fantasy series The brave ones also stand out. What is interesting about this —like in the other— is the authenticity of its Africanism, not derived from superficiality of comics and superheroes; so it has a wide range of supernatural traditions, to which it resorts in its practical value, not playing with horror and mystery.

As a defect, its cinematography abuses the teal & orange filter, which  is almost universal like a fake black and white;  but saved this difficulty, everything is party in a dramaturgy well pressed, that plays with its climax and anti climax. In fact it is not a simple confrontation between Good and Evil, as is typical of the series of superheros; but a very complex plot, with all the humanity that used the ancient myths, in addition to its magic.

Gullah Geechee in Cuba, the common vessels of New Africa

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No matter the irregularity of its origins, blackness converges and is refounded in the Americas as New Africa; and the meanders of that blood reunites in a single flow, which acquires oceanic overtones. An example of this is the incredible life of the black Francisco Meneses, captain of the Spanish army; whose singular destiny would take him to Cuba, as an unlikely outpost of the Gullah Geechee culture.

Its importance is then symbolic, although in a historical sense, as part of the founding myth of negritude;  which integrates the Cuban in the  universality of the New Africa, for this ascendant of Captain Meneses. Of course, this ascendant would have diluted his genetic factuality in the creoleness of the  new environment; nevertheless that would be enough, establishing that  link that recognizes blacks throughout the Americas as neo-Africans; cutting with trauma the umbilical cord, so that it grows to a striving adolescence, and from there to the sufficiency of maturity.

The myth covers Captain Meneses with a dubious role, but recognizes the importance of the link; and  that is enough, because it explains the thousand nooks and crannies that culture crosses on the shoulders of the race, to settle its power. The myth says that Captain Meneses fled slavery in the colony of Carolina, taking refuge in the Spanish policy against England; that is why he would have founded Fort Mose, where he would gain the rank of captain and even be rescued by the crown, before landing in Cuba with the Treaty of Paris of 1763.

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There —of course— begin the shadows of all myth, for that Spanish program was not universal on its own; and many fugitive  slaves —like Captain Meneses himself— were resold, to compensate their original owners.  Meneses would not be baptized of his own volition, but as a product of this resale of his to a  Spanish landowner; and he would end up fleeing to the Bahamas, acting as a pirate against English merchants, until he was captured by them.

Between its folds,  the myth then  hides the tragedy of the Spanish betrayal, compensating the English;  in fact, even the Indians themselves were not friendly to the blacks on principle, since their conflict was internal, not with the English. The Indian conflict was caused by the distortion of the slave market, which affected the power relations between them;  but for many of these, the Spanish were also settlers, affecting their relations of interest with their original tribes.

The important thing is that Meneses arrived in Cuba, and  —protagonist or not— participated in the founding of Ceiba Mocha; then in Cuba —specifically in Matanzas— somehow is flowing the Gullah Geechee blood of the United States. This is  more than symbolic, because that region is already the black belt that pressures ethnos and anthropologically the Cuban creoleness; and it is important, because the African ancestry is above all moral and symbolic, but not politically effective; while this mythology directs —in that singular symbolism  of the historical— the course of genetics, as a communicating vessel of black reality.