Hip Hop

Kendrik Lamar is the latest statement about Hip Hop in the United States, perhaps more than Childish Gambino; but before the two of them, it was a carefree —and therefore existential— way of expressing American culture; which is always that of the dangerous black ghettos, because gentrification has already distorted everything else. In this sense, the guilty silence in the face of the scandal with which Eminem triumphs, on black stages, is understandable; recalling the legend of the King, who is said to have stolen the spirit (soul) from the blacks, to commercialize it, white at last.

No one seems to stop before that undaunted faculty of reality, which realizes itself over the artificiality of prejudices; because Eminem and Elvis would be the proof of a process as surreptitious as it is public, of blackening of culture. The phenomenon is less scandalous —although denied just the same— among Cubans, because of the coexistence in the tenements; which, forced by economic precariousness, does not offer the lateral escapes of the state of well-being, and forces mutualism.

In any case, Elvis Presley's vulgar sensuality and Eminem's white trash violence show the same thing; and it is the existential nature of all transcendence, as a condition proper to the immanent, and not a parallel value. This is the peculiarity concealed by the fiery political speeches of Lamar and Gambino, who are black; because it resides in that precariousness that protests, not in the protest, which is delegitimized by the success of the protesters.

Obviously, as a peculiarity it is also subtle, and that is why it can go unnoticed by the interest of those protesters; who are obviously not interested in the effectiveness of their protest —making it banal— but in the success it brings. This, in fact, is also understandable and legitimate, if in the end precariousness has aesthetic value and in that a commercial scope; even if it loses consistency in the racking, as another trap of God, when it promotes our ethical suprematism.

The truth is that Hip Hop is poetic, because it is the pure and legitimate expression of an existential experience; visible even in that sublimated violence of Destiny Child in Iwant a soldier, already dissolved in Beyonce's divinity. Hip Hop today, like Blues yesterday —and rumba in Cuba—, is the contribution of blackness to the cultural adjustment of the West; and it is no coincidence that they all resolve themselves in a footwork, with which the dance expresses its rhythmic naturalness.

On the other hand, the great speeches of Lamar and Gambino are not made for dancing, or even for reflection; they demand assent —not consent— looking defiantly to see who dares to make any other gesture than their obviousness. They are hypocritical in its uselessness, like the critical Realism of the French with the falsity of their anti-heroic humanism; while, in contrast, the simplicity with which the violent man condescends to the gentle gesture is more realistic and effective.

Hence the poetic efficacy of Hip Hop, so little elaborated that it blushes the snobbery of the damned and lost poets; and for which Cubans should rethink the simplicity of regaetón, whose “reparterismo” replicates neigborishm. With similar subtleties, timba emerged in Cuba imitating the arrangements of black Disco music in the United States, for example; and even a mythical Rob Parissi has no problem acknowledging that Funky rescued him, precisely because of his uniqueness as a white.

It should not be forgotten, the dynamic is due to the reflexive function of poetic act, which never descends into discursive; that is why American television is populated with horror, speaking to emotion and not to intelligence; for if it were truly to speak to the intelligence, then he would have to be honest, and that is only guaranteed by horror. It is not a rhetorical game, but the dramatic value of existential experience, which is always bitter; because as sensible, effective knowledge is based on pain, giving meaning to pleasure and joy.

Stories with ache, a critical review

Warriors Editions has presented the title Stories with ache, a trilogy of short stories by black Cuban authors; in what seems a naïve effort, attempting to overcome the lack of will for effective integration in Cuban culture; but which, more than that, is the proof of a reality in its own consistency, apart from that lack of will. Thus, as a preamble, this editorial effort may seem socially vindictive, or even be objectively so; but beyond that —vindictive or not— it shows the sufficiency of an incredible culture, condemned to the margins.

Politically, the vindictive scope of this anthology is secondary, because its value lies precisely in its marginality; from which it can reflect on reality, beyond those conventions of the political, in a different scope, as existential. This would have always been the proper meaning of art, at least from that conflictive modernity that confronts it with Reason; but in a dichotomy in which it progressively lost ground, in the face of the crude advance of that conventionalism.

That is another discussion, which helps to put this wonderful anthology in context, but that is also secondary; because what matters here is the reality boiling in these stories, invisible in the falsehood of our political culture. That is also another discussion, just as secondary, but which also helps to contextualize the need for these stories; which with better and worse luck aspired to the realization of their authors, at a time when art itself is declining.

Above all, these are authors who have worked, loved and written stories that were invisible until today; but which now serves as an index and handbook, to navigate the parallel history of black culture in Cuba. This is what makes it necessary, even if against the evolution in which art is already declining of so much conventionalism; because that culture requires its own expression, which could even explain the shortcomings in which the one that covers it fails.

With a prologue of deserved density, this compilation refers to the darkened roots of Cuban black literature; in the tension between Martín Morúa Delgado and Cirilo Villaverde, which perpetuates the whiteness of Cuban negrismo; and in this, it refers to the presence of the black in national literature, with Salvador Golomón in Mirror of resilience. There are many reasons to believe and disbelieve the foundational character of Mirror of resilience in national literature; above all of them —and in both senses— is the moment in which it is known, at the mid-nineteenth century; when the founding myth of the nation is shaped, adjusting the past to legitimize the projection of the future.

Since then, the Negro has always been presented as a passive object of national culture, even if heroic; which is just a political fiction of literature, which does not express that effective reality of cultural miscegenation. That is what makes this anthology pertinent, not precisely as a vindication, which is always unnecessary and effective; but as an access to a reality hidden in its own scope, which that is there, in its own sufficiency, for everyone.

This cosmology, withdrawn and profoundly existential, is what explains the life of the nation, expressed in its culture; and it is the one in these stories, deloused from the profuse editorial activity that characterizes these times. None of them attests to an era, but to a reality, which in its parallelism adjusts the visible one, giving it perspective; and it is good that this work is brought together, as a basis to establish the true canon of national literature.

Carlos Martiel and the actuality of Slavery bondage

There should be no doubt about the religious edge nature of art, but religion is no longer a cultural reference; reduced to its mere political function, in contradiction to the historical transcendentalism of modern Idealism. That is why this nature of art goes unnoticed, with the distortion of the anthropological structure of society; which, no longer determined by culture but by politics, resolves its ideological character in this projection of art.

That is important, because in this religious edge nature, art becomes a pseudo-religious function; providing in this a hermeneutical structure (ideology), for that political determination of society. In this sense, art assumes the reflexive-discursive function of mystical traditions in religion; with an emphasis on the discursive, channeling this ideological rather than reflexive function, with its ethical referents; but also with reflective scopes, in this mystical character that it provides in its spiritual exaltation.

On the face of it, that order is already inverted as part of this distortion of society's determination; which is not resolved in culture itself —as an existential praxis— but in politics, with this effect. That is why, as a mystical sublimation of discourse, art no longer contradicts the institutional function of discourse; contrary to the pre-modern tradition on which it is based, and in which mysticism continually subverted this institutionality.

This is again important, as the dialectical loop in which society loses its capacity for renewal; by justifying, rather than adapting its institutionality, in the hermeneutical function of this historical transcendentalism. It is here that the contradiction is serious, as seen in the extreme cases of social marginalization; which segmented into conceptual abstractions, such as intersectionality, it cannot comprehend the individual.

The serious thing here is that the individual is the ontological basis of society, resolved in its existential praxis; which —thus disappeared— causes the stagnation of the whole structure, already doomed to an accelerated entropy. As an example, see the case of performances in plastic art, with their openly discursive projection; which, by recreating itself in the drama of an original experience, prevents its overcoming as practical.

The example would be in cases such as that of Carlos Martiel and his treatment of racism, which is always political; as it does not refer to an existential experience, but only recreates that of slavery in the black historical past. Martiel, to explain the example, does not contextualize the phenomenon as historical, but only morally; so that in the end it is decontextualized, in the same Manichean tradition of moral institutionalism; which born in Christianity, subverts its own anthropology as soteriological, with the political function of ideology.

Martiel thus reproduces the impact of the mystics on the Christian tradition, with its metaphysical drama; but, as we have seen, not in the anthropological function with which this mystique subverted tradition; made in the updating of that soteriological character of the experience he proposed, against institutional political pressure; but rather confirms and justify —as transcendental— that institutionality, with its moral transcendence. In fact, Martiel's work —as a postmodernist in general— requires a massive and systematic subsidy; which would already corrupt him, in that supposedly unconventional nature, with a political compromise.

As a result, to continue with the example, the black person will never be able to overcome his past as a slave; as the modern Christian can never escape the supposed but institutional blackmail of his liberation by Christ; which is supposed, since in reality it would occur at the individual level, by their consciousness, not institutionally. In this case, the black people is affiliated as a principle to an ideology, which spreads its protective mantle over him; that is to say, he loses the power of his own political expression, which is individual as practical and existential.

From the series Georgina Herrera I

Regarding women's poetry in Cuba, Catherine Davies points out that until the triumph of the revolution there were no black women writers; which may be excessive, referring more to their visibility than to an undoubtedly improbable non-existence. In any case, the contrast is strong with respect to the sample of black writers, who cover the entire literary spectrum; curiously, with more resonance in conservative media —such as the Diario de la Marina—, becoming even a niche.

In any case, the difference refers to the political precariousness of black people, determining its priorities; more serious in the case of women, even without cases like that of Phillis Wheatley in United States, who had the patronage of her masters. In Cuba, on the other hand, social freedom did not make this type of patronage possible, which alleviated the harshness of the environment; which, though less rude, was still beyond the strength of individuals aspiring to such a specialty as that of poetry. With men it is different, because its projection —and connections— is always political, allowing for other developments; contrary to women, who must leap from the domestic, when this —and not poetry— was the priority, as a primary need.

However, history is not an immobile, universal and abstract phenomenon, to be looked at with absolute parameters; on the contrary, as a reality, it occurs in the concrete phenomena in which it is realized, punctual in its exceptionality. It was then a matter of time before some pioneer would put her pike of blackness in the Flanders of Cuban literature; a development traumatized by the triumph of the revolution, with what that meant institutionally and ontologically.

That is the strange circumstance of Georgina Herrera, who makes her literary debut with the new institutionality; curiously, on the losing (Ediciones el Puente) and not on the triumphant side, which persists in its racial elitism. In fact, her older age compared to her contemporaries exposes her as the pioneer who did not materialize; grouped in an extemporaneity that did not allow her to establish group but only her own references, in her sufficiency.

In another circumstance, Herrera would have renewed the national spectrum with her sentimental existentialism; in her actual circumstance, she was neutralized by her low political profile, persisting in that existentialism. Perhaps this made possible her special sensitivity to African openness, dubious outside of the country's political manipulations; and yet this allowed her to reconnect with a transcendence, in which identity transcends the problems of childhood.

Recognized in all its splendour, her poetry is nevertheless dragged down by the weight of mediocre criticism; that, resorting to the commonplace, still tries to put together a political discourse where there is only personality; It is also about overexploiting that other commonplace of motherhood, more complex and dramatic than idyllic in her. Herrera is, in any case, an enigmatic and complex figure in every sense, from thematic to strictly literary existentialism; because her poetry does not derive from the symbolism with which modernity culminated, in its critical rationalization of romanticism; but matures directly from this romanticism, probably thanks to her formation, unique and sufficient as her self-taught.

Georgina Herrera navigated the iron system with her apparent modesty, camouflaging her haughtiness in silence; which further guaranteed her existentialism, with her persistence in the low political profile, which preserved it. In the end, there is nothing more political than that scandalous silence of her, like the stamp of his African elegance; something that the country insists on disdaining, as if it were not the needle that gives consistency to world, only that she already was and will be.

The reasoning behind the artificiality of faulknerism in black American literature

See in YouTube

As a necessary clarification, that artificiality of black faulknerism is still functional because of the market functionality; that means, because it functions in the context of white liberalism, as settled in modern art commercialism. But even this functionality is not popular or related to the whole social structure, but just to its intellectual elite; which lives with that same schizoid duplicity, just covered —contrary to black Americans— by their political stability.

We should remember that even political contradiction is stability by western parameters, since it’s dialectic; with both sides of any contradiction as a moral fiction of reality, and not reality itself in its own economic determinations. This is what makes sense of the aesthetic discussions ending modernity, in the transition from XIX to XX century; all of them related to this functionality, but on that sense of political struggles, as a state itself and not a process.  

The problem then is of the arts in that context of postmodernity, as the natural process of ending modernity; in which arts loses that original functionality it had in Modernity, as a transcendental alternative to rationalism. Of course, this is still contradictory, if it’s that transcendentalism what distorts the western ontology; but here comes the other distinction between metaphysical and historial transcendentalism, both in function of rationalism.

Rationalism surges as an objectivity in immanentism, aimed to positivism, and corrected by German negativism; but this negativism comes in two forms, one of them philosophical and the other literary, in German Romanticism. The philosophical correction becomes the historical transcendentalism —with Kant—, but is still immanentism; because that immanentism comes in its historical nature, with the political determination of the social being.

Descarga gratis en Drive

It's then the literary —aesthetic in general— what comes as pure transcendentalism, in its metaphysical nature; still related to immanentism as its primary determination, and so limited on its understanding of reality determinations. This is because it’s still an idealistic reaction to rationalism, that only function as its existential complement; covering the aspects outside of idealistic determinism, with the problems of the will as negativist (extra positivist) reflection of reality.

In this process, modern Rationalism will produce its own contradictions, in the mechanical fatigue of its logics; making dysfunctional its complementary Irrationalism, since the hermeneutic at use is the same for both traditions. This is what happens with the new understanding of the real in postmodernity, with the development of new physics; that progressively makes space for realistic probabilism, substituting the idealistic of transcendental determinism.

This makes arts progressively dysfunctional in its reflective scopes, since its functionality depends on science; on that contradictory loop of dialectics, which solves the partiality of human understanding in Modern rationalism. Here is how we can understand that artificiality of black faulknerism —not as inferiority—, as dysfunctional; because it’s the aesthetic approach to reality in general what lacks functionality, with the new understandings of reality.

See in Kindle

This would be what makes that black intellectualism so fragile, as they lack the political resources of the white; while their westernity prevents them from using the existential references of their own spiritual and religious practices. Let’s not forget that schizoid duplicity at the beginning, which is what results of this apparent lack of resources; artificial as their intellectual struggles, satisfied with commercial success, but as a politically stylized folklore.

Curiously enough, even as a failure in its artificiality, this is a very natural process, solving also natural contradictions; that comes over the arduous process of  black integration, keeping the links at the time that produces the tensions. This is the tension over black development maturity, coming from its first establishment to its apotheosis; the first in that simultaneity of movements like Negritude, Black renaissance, Pan-Africanism and anticolonialism; the second on the stage that interlaces all of them by its critical mass as a New Black Though, but on that previous basis.

 

As they lay dying, the artificiality of faulknerism in black American literature

The sense of art was an important subject of art itself with the high estheticism of the XIX century; marking the end of the Illustration's, expanded from the XVII century, as a peak of Modernity itself. That mark then the declining of that cultural period as the postmodernity, in a functional ending; in which arts recreates in itself, trying to understand a functionality it doesn’t recognize in its own being.

This is important, as the moment American blackness is forming in its social and political alienation, by its economic precariousness; thus incorporating all the contradictions of this period in the western culture as its own, along the XX century. Here then the theoretic conflagration of Western culture is dramatically political among the black people, even regarding arts; because it’s always referred to political functionality in real life, in the middle of the existential of segregation and class war.

Here comes the paradox, when arts function as an existencial reflection in its dramatic expression of reality; but as an artificial drama in romantic fiction, it’s a pure and immediate reality for the political marginality of blacks. The paradox consists in that singularity of black culture, that reverses the scope of aesthetic reflection of reality; since the black social struggles provides that pathetic of white fiction, in the specific context of western culture.

This is the difference between Morúa and Villaverde in Cuba —for example— not the snobbish of the first; as between the black authors and faulknerism in American literature, even with black faulknerism authenticity. The problem here is not moral as the ethics of historical transcendentalism, but of existential effectiveness; worsened in that case of black literature, for its use as legitimation of social war by white liberalism, in its transcendentalism.

This contradiction is created by the western political contradictions in itself, since the apotheosis of modernity; born in the utopic socialism of French aristocracy in their —falsely popular— revolution, with German transcendentalism. This creates the modern political —masked as social dialectic— struggles, with the push of artificial transcendentalism; as the sole parameter for the whole western society, in contradiction with its natural development in new societies.

The result is a kind of schizoid duplicity among black intellectuals, as the ones struggling with this difficulty; solved at popular level with spiritual and religious practices, which always set the existential references for people. Te problem of black intellectuals in America is the retorting to rational legitimacy, in that parameter of dialectic and class war; ideologically organized as a moral, in that transcendentalism that twisted the western ontology, as historical in its idealism.

The duplicity consists in this effort of legitimacy itself, at the same time of practicing magic and religious traditions; which could actually solve their contradictions as artificials, understanding their same practices in nature. That would means retorting to popular pragmatism though, instead of forcing it in ideal transcendentalism; to feed white liberal politics with transcendental justifications, living then in that schizoid duplicity.

This would be what makes black arts so inefficient in America, although realistic in their reflection of reality; because this reflection is subordinated to that dysfunctional western ontology, not bringing its own determination. Curiously, this is not the case on black conservatism, tat differs even from white conservatism in its functionality; since this conservationism is not historical transcendentalist but functional, in their political precariousness; but even because its practicality, this black conservatism doesn’t have the political pretentions of their intellectual elite as liberal.

Then, this contradiction comes from the distinction of existential priorities between white liberalism and blacks; the first as political and the second economic in its existentialism, because their lack of path to stability. Still, the blacks maintain their existential efficiency at the popular level, because it comes from their spiritual practices; but it can’t be recognized in the conventionalism of their intellectual elite, which only can agonize in their contradictions.

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.

See article

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.

See review (Spanish)

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.