Viola Davis leads a powerful team into battle in the epic Gina Prince-Bethwood, inspired by royal female warriors.
The action adventure "The Woman King" is a comprehensive entertainment game, but it is also an ongoing story about resilience in front of and behind the camera. The rise of filmmakers in the last decade is one of the great chapters in cinema history, and with women returning to the field, they have also taken up space, on screens and in minds, something he has long denied. the weather. His paintings are again as extensive as his desires.
One of the most comprehensive of these paintings is undoubtedly "The Woman King," a drama about royal recruits in the pre-colonial kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. The film, directed by Gina Prince-Bythwood, is filled with palace plots, lavish celebrations and exciting battles, as golden age Hollywood loved to show off, with actors of thousands (or so!). However, while it evokes the vintage look that studios had long before Marvel, there is no precedent for this show.
The story, as the directors like to say, is "inspired" by real events, which is amazing in this case. The story has its roots in Dahomey warriors whose origins remain obscure due to tribal legends and oral traditions, as well as biased, self-serving and sometimes contradictory accounts from European observers. Warriors are believed to have emerged in the 17th century and were part of a women's dense social organization that included many wives and parties within the palace complex. (The bastion was about one-eighth the size of Central Park.)
Brides sometimes appear in The Woman King, seated and standing in a cloud of royal luxury. They are disguised, often passively disguised, lethargic and beautifully appear as puppets waiting for someone to play with them. It will be King Jizo, the hilarious young king played by John Boyega, who will bestow the reckless character's dominance over a very important person who doesn't seem to be doing much other than the most important thing: cling to power. If Ghezo wears the crown lightly, it is only because others are doing his hard, dirty, and sometimes deadly work.
Warriors are the ones doing the hard work, and of course these are the main attractions that Prince Bethwood immediately announced. So, after some quick and proper preparation (1823), the movie begins with flashy fights, a rowdy entry steeped in history and blood, including yours. Led by battle-scarred General Naniska (Viola Davis), the female soldiers appear, their bodies covered in a gleam, like a hallucination made palpable by Prince-Bythwood. Suddenly the screen was filled with intense movement and rotating objects rising and falling.
The action scenes are deep and somehow rooted in the laws of physics. Even in the dead of night, Prince-Bythewood takes you into the battlefield and the ensuing chaos of combat, restricting you visually, adding to the realism of the movie. In other words, it puts you right on the ground so you can watch these women fly. That's exactly what they do, not with the heads of superheroes and fairy-tale magic, but with swords, spears, spinning ropes, and sometimes a revolver: no longer long, tattered nails that sweep the enemy's eyes and thighs that divide men. like nuts
A woman is her best weapon, and among it all, "The Woman King" is about energetic and strong black women, their souls, minds and bodies. Prince-Bythewood guides these warriors, with the colors of their skin, with love and care. (Director of Photography Polly Morgan.) You don't have to be a scholar of Old Hollywood, which divided black actors into color gamut and cast darker actors into servant roles, to understand the larger implications of Prince Bethwood in representing women like Davis, Sheila Atem, and Lashana Lynch: it's a galvanizing process;
The haunting story oscillates between poignant and sometimes world-shaking events, and a deeper one about the slave trade. Dahomey's smuggling of other people complicates the triumph of a film that celebrates the power of women, a complexity that the story never handles satisfactorily. For the most part, the filmmakers (screenplay by Dana Stevens, from a story she and Maria Bello wrote) navigate the political and moral jungle with Nanska's personal concerns about the trade, which she expresses to King, arguing that he can keep it. Its softness.
Nanska's hopes and Dahomey's future are inextricably linked to the plans of the kingdom's chief rival, the Oyo Empire (whose reckless leader is played by Jimmy Udkoya), which also sells out other humans, including the insatiable Europeans. Accurately depicted or not, Oyo, with turbans wrapped around his head and charging horses, is eerily reminiscent of the Janjaweed, the mounted militiamen who ravaged western Sudan in the early 2000s. The atrocities of the nineteenth century in Africa combined with those of the post-colonial continent.
Even if the script fails, this story and Prince Bethwood's advice give "The Women King" the strength that emerges in every fight and in the tense faces and tensed muscles of the warriors. When Nanisca rallies them before the battle, and shouts that they must fight or die, she is echoing the covenant that it is better to die on your feet and knees. Women are learning to live on their knees, and part of what makes this movie so poignant is how it claims to have a chapter in the story that overturns prevailing ideas about sex, even if the story is more complex than the movie suggests.
"The Woman King" wanders here and there, essentially dealing with the subplot that becomes less convincing in each scene and includes a savage young woman, Nawi (the alluring Thoso Mbedo), who is left by her family in the mansion. The character, a naive classic that must be taught and tested, is a clear narrative invention that Mbedou fills with courage and character. In part, Naoi acts as an agent for the public following her plan as she transforms into a fighter and learns from her mentor Izugi, the fierce warrior played by the brilliant and charismatic Lynch.
It is disappointing that the text does not always rely on its single source and Prince-Bethwood's coherent and consistent guidance. Surely, had the writing been more accurate and less bogged down by contemporary ideas about women's roles (at one point, the film turned into a dying melodrama for mothers), Davis would have done a lot more than shine or cry. She's good at both and gives the role the toughness it demands, but the character isn't quite as elaborate, although when Nanska raises her sword and gathers her women, you feel in your bones the dangers in this fight.
Comments
Post a Comment