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.