How Olódùmarè is effectively God

The problem with religious syncretism is its approach from opposites, even based on the same presupposition; which is wrong, trying to preserve religious structures in their purity, not in their functionality. For essentialism it is corruption, and for relativism it is an indiscriminate mixture of unrelated elements; and both positions assume that religions are definite phenomena, not functional systems in continuous adjustment.

But it is this continuous adjustment what gives consistency to the religious phenomenon, as its existential function; which is to regulate the relations of the concrete person with reality, in the reflection of its formal determinations. Hence, syncretism is precisely the development of this phenomenon, as an adjustment of this relationship; whose function is then ontological —and therefore structural—, relating functions of that reality, including the religious person.

So this is not a question of concrete religious identities, but of those functions of reality, conventionally represented; and where, for example, the Abrahamic God is not a figure essentially distinct from other supreme divinities. The difference would then lie not in their metaphysical nature, but in their different representations by the culture; and whose differences are in fact functional, marking that difference of their respective representations.

In that same example, the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition develops in highly institutionalized cultures; where representation fulfills a regulative function of the political and economic order, not merely existential. On the other hand, Olódùmarè belongs to a cosmology where this function is not representable, invokable or personified; that is, it is not subject to representation, because its culture has not developed that conventional institutionalization; so that their representation admits non-conceptual figures, and therefore alien to the logic of human hierarchies.

This contrast, however, is not an absolute opposition to Western rationality, but a functional difference; since this representation is not exclusive to Greek rationalism, but a consequence of its institutionality. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, religion already contracted from its double function, of infra and super-structural, to super-structural; with the political tension on the figure of the prince-priest, in which the former assumes the administration of trade and tribute.

From this transition arises the need for a conventional representation, which allows the management of the divine; in that super-structural function in which it organizes the instituted order, with culture as a transcendent identity. In this context, the equivalence between principles of different traditions is not ignorance or reductionism; rather, it is a structural operation, in which functions are translated, from one hermeneutical spectrum to another; and where hermeneutics is precisely cosmology, as a reflection of the transcendent determinations of the real.

What is thus at stake is not identity nor the names, but the function they fulfill in the cosmological system; in which Olódùmarè is "the vastness that knows the mystery", and God "the creative principle that orders the world". The equivalence does not lie in their respective attributes, but in their position in the ontological structure of culture; and in which syncretism does not fuse Olódùmarè with God out of naivety, but out of structural necessity; since what is at stake is to sustain a cosmology, whose very function is in fact existential and not religious; because the function of religion is existential, as that regulation of the relationships in which reality structures itself.

Thus, syncretism is not a symbolic negotiation, but a structure of survival, which resolves the function of the divine; and it can be said that the critics of syncretism respond even to that determination that they deny, in their representation; since, they must recognize that reductive representation of the divinity as of absolute value, not only epistemic. Thus, syncretism must be understood as an ontological reflection, of functional equivalences, that preserves religious structures; and does this subsuming them in other forms, for their validity lies in the functions they fulfill, organizing the relationships with the reality.

Ontological Pragmatism of African Origin, from the Epilogue to MogiNganga

The parallelism of the Greek and African cosmogonies is curious, although by confluence rather than direct influence; like in the rivalry of Olokun and Obatalá for control of the world in Ifé, as in Poseidon and Athena for Athens. In the Greek case, Athena defeats Poseidon by proving her usefulness, granting the people the power of judgment; in the Yoruba case, the judgment is of the divinities themselves in their sufficiency, and Obatalá wins it for his intelligence, not his usefulness. The Yemallá of popular tradition —collected by Rómulo Lachatañeré— synthesizes this conflict as existential; like the original Yembó, a sterile farmer woman, who receives fertility as she adopts Shangó, son of Obatala[1].

In this sense, the historical figure of Shango is that of the unpopular tyrant, condemned to suicide for his excesses; which he must undertake by the hand of his wife —with her as nature—, given its own scope as a political expression. This would not be a symbol of moral value —as from historical transcendentalism— but an existential dynamic; by which in its realization, as a political expression, the human being cannot overcome his individuality; and acts according to his interests, first individual and therefore as a class, corrupting that transcendentalism.

That is why its nature, at the height of its contradictions, produces its structural crisis in as a political expression; but existential in this critical sense, because of the contradiction of its immanence, in that transcendentalism. As a historical figure, assimilated to Yakutá, Shangó thus reorders the meaning of the pantheon, inaugurating the political; who’s potential then lies in Oggún, unfolding the cosmic drama in tension with him, through Yemallá.

Like Shangó —but unlike Oggún— Yemallá is a historical figure, assimilated to the divinity of Olokun; referring to the end of the age of the Erumales[2], more conceptual than the Greek cosmogony at the end of the titanic age. As an example, the personalities associated with Shangó are also associated with politics, or at least with its pretensions; but they are in themselves tragic and controversial, tending to the violence and existential frustration of this realization.

In an explanation of the example, a primordial myth of Shango explains its tragedy, similar to that of Heracles; bringing himself the misfortune of his house, with the careless manipulation of his powers over lightning, causing his madness. Note that, with Shango as a historical figure founding the political expression of the real, this is born of water; reproducing the dynamics of the Bantu cosmogony, although not in a consequential but converging, in parallelism.

That would point to a practicality, as not arising from nothingness but from the formless, like the Greek Chaos; whose first current connotation is in the wild, the Mount (Mayombe) as the spirit (Elán?) that expresses itself in the real. As a space of effective and non-symbolic value, this is the transcendent city of literature, in its referential function; from the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-2) to the City of God, which ranges from Platonic Idealism to the humanism of Thomas More.

In that same function, but symbolic (political) rather than as a efferent, it appears in contemporary literature; in the transcendentalism of the so-called Magical Realism, from Santa Monica de los Venados, Macondo and Nueva Venecia. However, contrary to those previous cases, this space is not an abstraction (Eidos) that culminates the real (Power); but its Potential, to which the real turns in search of its references, which are existential, not political determinations like the former.

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[1] . Cf: Rómulo Lachatañeré, El sistema religioso de los afrocubanos [Oh, mío Yemallá!], Ed. Ciencias Sociales, La Habana 2001. // It should be noted that, contrary to Lachatañeré's mestizo and popular origin, Cuban ethnography is mostly the work of whites of bourgeois origin.

[2] . Erumale means radiance in the Yoruba language, explaining the emanationism of this cosmology, with the erumales coming from the absolutivity of God, while the orishas (Igbamoles) come from the Igba (güira) formed by Obatalá and Oduduwa.

Against modern thought

The idea that modern capitalism arises from English industrialism, eludes its origin and support by the culture; which had been expanding since the discovery of the so-called New World, flooding the market with sumptuary objects. This expansion, prior to the technological revolution, would determine the consumption habits, stimulating industrialization[1]; as a culture that is not only consumerist, but also dependent on that consumerism, in the artificiality of its economic organization.

As a culture, with its own political expression, this would be what distorts the modern understanding of culture; already in crisis due to its own hermeneutical contradiction, with the political specialization of its middle class, as an intellectual. Neither capitalism nor the bourgeoisie would be then a modern phenomenon, defining the West culture since ancient times; when the expansion of Phoenician trade —outside its own regulatory framework— reshaped the Greek political stratification.

It will be the intellectual specialization of this middle class, with modern commercialism, what will provoke the crisis; and this comes from the political —not economic— conflicts of the transition to the late Middle Ages, with the Carolingian Renaissance. That Carolingian renaissance would in fact be an extension of the Merovingian, but lacking a middle class to become a cultural expression; that only appears with Louis VI in the twelfth century, in his strategy against the expansion of the Angevin empire; and that is why it takes its reference from that Carolingian period, as the closest instance of its political legitimacy[2].

Then, Modernity, with the fall of Granada and the discovery of the New World, would not be an original renaissance; but a reordering of the old one, explaining the postmodern persistence of the feudal political structure; including the tying to the gleba (land), by which citizens cannot move freely between countries. All this implies that modern thought —from Descartes to Kant, Hegel and Marx— develops as a political fiction; hermeneutically conditioned by its economic dependence, on both the aristocracy and the crown that funds it; explaining the period as a progressive disorder, rather than as a cultural order properly speaking.

Hence, the crisis in which Modernity culminates in the nineteenth century is not exactly political but anthropological; surpassing in this that of the Roman Empire —which survived in the Byzantine— and that of archaic Greece; to resolve itself in a postmodernity, which only marks the establishment of a new order, like that of the Germans in Rome. To understand this phenomenon, it is then necessary to overcome its determination, which is hermeneutical; not economic, because the economy only makes possible its historical realization as a political expression, but does not determine it.

Hence, any renewal of the structure will come always from its popular base, ethnically defined in an identity; because this identity is what provides them with the referents of their needs, as existential instead of political. This will reshape that hermeneutic, in its political framework as an order in disintegration, due to its dysfunctionality; but without its determination, given that marginality for which it had resorted to his identity, rather than to political convention.

None of this can be understood by modern thought, as dialectic and not trialectic, creating an epistemological loop; for which it can understand history, but not its determination, which is transhistorical, as a condition of reality. Hence this insufficiency, from which all its projections are contradictory but in dichotomies, not trichotomies; because of its incomprehension of the transhistorical nature of the real, structured in its immanence, not in its transcendence.

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[1] . It refers not only to gold and silver, which facilitated mercantilism by flooding the markets, but also to consumer goods, such as tobacco, alcohol and sugar, which are not as important to existence as English wool, which they displace.

[2] . It refers to the formation of cities under royal protection—with a bureaucratic structure—within fiefs under Angevin jurisdiction; referring to the entity formed by the County of Anjou and the Duchies of Aquitaine and Normandy, owned by the English crown. It’s from this function that is understood the pseudo-aristocratic character of the middle class; because its functional displacement of that aristocracy, providing the State with the new capital of ideology, with its of its intellectual specialization.

Georgina Herrera on Cuban’s Language Day

Miguel de Cervantes was born on April 23, 1547, and William Shakespeare was born on the same date, but in 1564; because both of them, this date is recognized as the day of the Spanish and English languages, which reach their maturity with the work of the latter. This points to the undeniable transcendence of these men, because it is in literature that language is organized and matured; as an external support, which enhances reflection as existential, as a peculiar understanding of the world.

On that same date but in 1936, Georgina Herrera was born in Jovellanos (Cuba), giving a similar value to poetry; not yet to language, which has matured since Cervantes, allowing this other maturation of poetry in Cuba; but to this poetry, which is peculiar because it renews the instrumentality of language for reflection as existential. It is, therefore, an event of similar significance, although the proximity somewhat clouds this scope of hers; because it will be in this instrumentality that culture achieves its best integration, as specifically Cuban.

Namely, as a reflection of reality, culture is a network of relations as chaotic as the former; but now —different from the former— with a sense on its own, because of the peculiarity in which it is carried out, even more as Cuban. In fact, Cuba is the critical point at which Western culture bubbles, unable to materialize due to its innumerable contradictions; which can only be reconciled in a functional integration, starting from a given and progressive understanding of reality.

This progression is what language would provide, as well as its own development and maturity, given in its functionality; and this is what would reside in its ability to reflect the real, in a poetic structure that unveils the meaning of life. This is what recognises the transcendence of art and literature, explaining the scope of Cervantes and Shakespeare; such as Georgina Herrera, whose poetics constricts the formal nonsense of Cuban literature to its existential function.

We should remember that Cuban literature has been distorted by political determinism since nineteenth century; when pseudo-realist symbolism prevails over the nascent national costumeries[1], provoking the bitter critique of the real. This is the drama that unfolds from Cirilio Villaverde and Morúa Delgado, and extends throughout the national novelistic; but unresolved, because the novel —distinct from poetry— is too susceptible to the author's interference.

For this reason, the Cuban novel can only expose these contradictions, but not solve them as poetry can; and this not for its own sake or in fact, but to the extent that this poetry escapes that same political determinism. Herrera does this, as the link that unites the two periods of splendor and decadence of Cuban culture; emerging as a power that sums up the first, to materialize itself through all difficulties in the second. The undeniable transcendence of Cervantes and Shakespeare is given by their immanence, no less undeniable; Georgina Herrera's remains to be seen, but like that lies in this existential —not political— nature of her poetry.

In all three cases, it is the durability that guarantees the functionality of the form, already excellent in its own value; in the latter case, because of that stubborn existentiality that denses it, beyond the political flourish and even the beautiful phrase. Herrera's poetry establishes a hermeneutic from which to reflect on the existence of the nation in its culture, that is its value; and it is functional, fulfilling Morúa's claim to Villaverde, with that effective integration of the political margin into its existentiality; not as a black —although because her blackness— nor as a woman —although because her femininity— but in her extreme humanity.

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[1] . It refers to “Costumbrismo” as a literary stile, based in the description of social costumes with similar sense to the Critical Realism of French modern literature.

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.

Los jacobinos negros, C.L.R. James

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Este es un libro capital, que explica la primera revolución de independencia en América, luego de la norteamericana; especialmente importante en esto, porque envuelve la enormidad del mundo latino, en su contraste con el anglo sajón. El libro tiene además el ritmo trepidante de la novela histórica, porque así de compleja y tumultuosa es la realidad que describe; superando en sutilezas y profundidad la más atrevida y surrealista de las ficciones, porque es como un primer momento de la creación.

Tan intensa es su comprensión de la realidad, que esquiva la justificación de los héroes, y los presenta en su humanidad; con lo que arroja luces sobre esos incomprensibles pasajes de todos estos procesos, deteniéndose en la naturaleza de los mismos. De paso, el autor expone la personalidad de Toussaint de Loverture, el más controvertido y complejo de estos héroes; cuya pasión es la historia misma que se desenvuelve hasta hoy día, que el autor vincula —eficaz en su ingenuidad— a Fidel Castro, lo que merece otro tratamiento.

Este libro deja claro cómo la revolución haitiana no fue un producto separado de la francesa, sino su expresión; resquebrajando las débiles estructuras políticas de la colonia, como el mundo en formación que era antes que la mera continuidad. No hay que confundirse, la revolución haitiana y la francesa, difieren en carácter —no en alcance— por su circunstancia; por eso una es expresión de la otra, pero a la misma vez que su extensión, si bien discontinua, en esa doble función de todo lo real.

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El libro también recuerda que tanto los sucesos en Francia como en Haití son super complejos, por su diversidad política; que no sólo opone un club de Massiac[1] al de los Jacobinos, sino que revela además las tensiones de sus respectivos extremos. Quizás la mejor parte, que impulsa ese ritmo trepidante, es la estricta sucesión de hechos y su concatenación minuciosa; narrando las líneas de tiempo de todo lo que ocurre, tanto en Francia como en Haití —todavía Santo Domingo—.

El libro es especialmente importante para los cubanos, por lo que significa esa revolución en el horizonte nacional; desde la ferocidad del Capitán General O’Donnell al levantamiento de los Independientes de Color, su masacre y consecuencias. Tal es esa importancia, que ocupa gran parte del ensayo de Martín Morúa Delgado sobre la integración racial en Cuba[2]; y que puede ser mejor comprendido no sólo por su propia traducción de la biografía de Loverture[3], sino también con este otro título.

La revolución haitiana es tan importante que figura en la dialéctica hegeliana, como la francesa en el marxismo; pero inexplorada en su dimensión antropológica, sus repercusiones son ontológicas, en la comprensión de la historia. Hegel comprendió en definitiva la referencia haitiana —de segunda mano además— desde su propia hermenéutica; que preestablecida ya desde Kant, adaptó el suceso particular de la revolución haitiana a su concepto universal, por ello insuficiente.

Esa complejidad es la que asoma en este libro, explicando así la naturaleza trialéctica y no dialéctica de la realidad; porque responde a tensiones tricotómicas y no dicotómicas, permitiendo por fin la superación de las limitaciones filosóficas modernas. Esa otra materia de lo histórico —que es la filosofía— es lo que puede extraerse de este libro, que es así una referencia capital; porque trascendiendo la función ideológica, permite por fin estos nuevos desarrollos, que exponen por fin la novedad del Nuevo mundo.

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[1] . A los conocidos clubes de los Jacobinos (republicanos) y los Feuillants (realistas), se unía el de los Massiac, que representaba a los colonos de las Indias Occidentales; como los Jacobinos toman su nombre del antiguo convento de Saint Jacob, los Feuillants lo tomaban del antiguo monasterio de las Frondas, y los del Massiac lo tomaban del hotel Massiac, en el que se reunían.

[2] . Primer acercamiento sistemático y minucioso, de valor incluso antropológico, a la estructura social cubana desde el punto de vista racial; con énfasis en estas diferencias estructurales, entre la sociedad haitiana y la cubana, para explicar la improcedencia de un tratamiento equivalente. El ensayo de Morúa podría de hecho ser un precedente para mover el eje hermenéutico de la antropología cubana, desde la perspectiva de la burguesía blanca criolla —Lidia Cabrera, Fernando Ortiz, Alejo Carpentier— a una más efectiva; que siendo de hecho integracionista, no se detenga en el negro como un objeto más o menos curioso, sino como sujeto activo en su singularidad etnológica.

[3] . Se trata de The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, The Negro Patriot of Hayti: Comprising an Account of the Struggle for Liberty in the Island, and a Sketch of Its History to the Present Period. Por John R. Beard. // CF: Edición electrónica.

The breathing of Jordan Neely

“I can’t breathe” is a compelling phrase for a reason, remembering the ignition of the case of William Floyd; which is exemplary because of its recurrence, in the no fewer recurring sparks between blacks and the police. It’s not a minor point that a lot of those cases involve black officers, so the lines are not that clear here but blurred; with the only rationality that whoever takes a stance is on the wrong, or taking political advantage of its ambiguity.

More often than not that’s just what impedes the solution in any contradiction, entangled by is political weight; but in this entanglement the blacks are the ones to losses more, since is their own life what’s at stake. So it’s up to the blacks to search for an effective solution, over those boundaries of the political gain; and it’s not to take or point the blame, in and idealistic call to upfront their social struggles, in another political stun; but to try to understand the reasons behind all those deaths, even if racially motivated, and stop the trend.

This doesn’t work in its traditional ways of direct confrontation, but in the smartest of surrounding the provocations; because it should be clear that this recurrence illustrates a system so corrupt that’s not able to fix itself. But to think that any other system would be better is to ignore the problem of political systematism, lethal in its contradictions; which is why we should take responsibility and be creative in our relationship with the structural powers, by our own.

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Whomever reclaims a faster solution for a so old and intricate problem, is only feeding the contradiction; because its roots are so deep in the time and fabric of society, that can’t be fixed so easily as with a stun. So in order to fix it would be better to dig in the field, until find that specific twisted root and correct it; which is so hard labor that only the directly interested in a real solution could face it, avoiding the —as obvious as corrupting— political gains.

The image that blacks were emancipated by the country, rather than by themselves, is the basis of the Jim Crown; which were not just a malevolent engineering of society, but mostly a cruel and dysfunctional  reduction of blackness. We Cubans knows a little about it, because the Cuban society was built against that idea of a freedom gave by the Americans; which was only partially true, because it culminated a century of Cuban fight against its development as a Spain colony.

As the same, American black history doesn’t start with the emancipation nor with the struggle of the civil rights; which wasn’t in order to protect the political interest of the blacks, but those of their protectors. The proof of this last argument is on that persistence of racial clashing in the society, even during the civil war; due this twist in their own roots, intertwining all its elements on its own structure, in order to maintain its original form.

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Black history in America starts long before the Civil War, with proved rebellions like Stono Bono and the Seminole; the Civil war was so stagnated in its own contradictions, only solved with this twist of the black history; but this history was already consistent by its own, and eventually would have led to black emancipation, in its own way. It’s this submission of the black history —to the poisoned gift of the whites— what obscures the lines here; because it’s what sparks so many contradictions along its different parts, imposing that vicious victimhood in the blacks.

That’s what explains the recurrent problem of violence among blacks, intrinsic to our political marginality; not something to solution with protection programs, so violent that instill its poison on our already twisted roots. We need to reestablish our own history, in our own terms, only that not as a social discourse for political gains; but as a way to reflection over life with our own cosmology, knowing wat we are and what we are able to do with ourselves.

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.

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.