Small Axe sharp with tension, joy & rage

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This article was published 12/12/2020 (1790 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It might seem strange for Prime Video to have listed Small Axe, writer-director Steve McQueen’s five-film anthology, as a miniseries on the streaming service’s menu.

After all, each of the instalments, ranging in length from 70 minutes to two hours, could reasonably be called a standalone movie. They contain none of the same actors or characters and span a couple of decades. The first three — Mangrove, Lovers Rock and Red, White and Blue — are tonally and stylistically distinct.

However, even if you don’t watch the anthology all at once (the fourth film, Alex Wheatle, was added on Friday; the final one, Education, drops Dec. 18), you’ll sense the thread that ties the individual works together, both in obvious and more subtle ways.

Small Axe is about the experience of West Indian immigrants in London in the ‘70s and ‘80s (the title is a reference to a proverb made popular in the Bob Marley song of the same name: “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe, ready to cut you down.”).

It’s also about Black spaces: in Mangrove, that space is a community hub being threatened by outside violence; in Lovers Rock, it’s a sanctuary, a place to be yourself; in Red, White and Blue, the protagonist finds himself uneasily trapped between spaces, regarded as a traitor by one but unable to infiltrate the other.

British filmmaker McQueen (Hunger, 12 Years a Slave), himself of Grenadian and Trinidanian descent, had apparently been ruminating on the contents of Small Axe since 2010 but its release this year, in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s death at the hands of police and the subsequent igniting of the Black Lives Matter movement, feels perfectly timed.

Mangrove is set in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in the Notting Hill neighbourhood of London, where the Black population is accustomed to being regularly harassed by the white bobbies on the beat. That harassment finds a focal point at the Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant owned by Frank Critchlow (Shaun Parkes), who draws the particular ire of the reprehensible PC Pulley (Sam Spruell). The restaurant is repeatedly raided without cause,possibly aided by the fact Frank lets the local chapter of the Black Panthers use the space.

Frank is an unwilling leader — he just wants to run his restaurant in peace — but he is convinced to help organize a non-violent protest by activists who see the Mangrove as a vital gathering place for the West Indian community.

What ensues is based on the true story of the Mangrove Nine, who, after a clash with police, were charged with riot and affray. Their day in court is a milestone in the British justice system.

Mangrove has elements of courtroom drama but it’s outside the Old Bailey where the emotional action takes place. Letitia Wright is thrilling as Black Panther leader Altheia Jones and Parkes captures the twinned rage and ambivalence of a man who doesn’t feel he should have to become an activist to be treated fairly.

The most conventionally presented film of the three is the third, Red, White and Blue, but it’s no less affecting for that. Also based on a true story and set in the mid-’80s, it follows Leroy Logan (John Boyega), a research scientist who decides to become a police officer to change the racist institution from the inside out.

His father (Steve Toussaint) is livid, having spent his life working to make sure his son stays as far away from the cops as possible. He’s also suffered at their hands, enduring a vicious beating that landed him in the hospital.

The meticulous Leroy is law and order to his bones, and takes to police training with alacrity. However, it doesn’t take long for it to become clear that, despite his clear superiority, promotions will be withheld. Making matters worse, he’s viewed with suspicion in the neighbourhood, called an Oreo and denied the chance to do the kind of community policing he aspires to.

Boyega is truly wonderful in the role, wordlessly showing us his inner conflict when he looks at his reflection in his brand new uniform. Behind his ramrod posture is a contrasting struggle to remain collected in the face of taunts and smirks, the awareness of being held to higher standard while being used as a token. And this is no Oscar-bait bit of contrived inspiration; there’s no happy ending in sight.

Lovers Rock is the outlier. Taking place over the course of a single night, it’s set at a 1980 blues party. These gatherings were held in private homes where Black people could mingle and dance, away from the racist British club scene of the day. (Note: if you aren’t conversant in Caribbean patois, you will likely need to turn on the subtitles.)

Martha (Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn) has snuck out of the house to attend a party with her friend. She meets Franklyn (Micheal Ward) and after a bit of rocky start, the two spark up a romantic connection.

It’s an impressionistic film, more about images and emotions than plot. The camera lingers on couples, glued together and swaying to the lovers rock of the title, a reggae-soul style of music tailor-made for slow dances. A bead of condensation runs down the wallpaper in the overheated living room. Partygoers sing an a cappella version of the 1979 hit Silly Games. Guys hit on the women lined up for the bathroom, most benign, some more menacing.

Though all three films have moments of intense tension — the threat of race-based harassment or violence is never far away — and are often unbearably sad and enraging, they are also suffused with joy. Outside the Mangrove, crowds dance to steelpan music in the street, while Aunt Betty cooks up goat curry and ackee and saltfish inside. In Lovers Rock, the rapturous dancing to the Revolutionaries’ Kunte Kinte shows music transforming from mere entertainment into the soundtrack to a revolution. In Red, White and Blue, Leroy and his wife Gretl (Antonia Thomas) share a loving, supportive marriage that helps him face the daily indignities of his job.

While the broader political aspect of Small Axe’s stories is galvanizing, it’s the smaller, more intimate moments in McQueen’s films that are unforgettable.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dedaumier