Movie: If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018)
Lulu Wang's The Farewell is my favorite work from the Barry Jenkins household, but If Beale Street Could Talk is also one of the best films of recent years. It may sound a bit odd, but if Oliver Stone was interested in black history (some would shudder at the thought), and was romantically inclined, you can imagine he could have made something like this. The film freely cuts between different timelines, giving itself the freedom to digress whenever it sees fit, re-contextualizing images, motifs and lines of dialogue, introducing and re-introducing characters, hovering between different styles and genres, while never losing focus of the central love story between Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James). Starting out as childhood friends, they fall in love in their twenties and prepare for a life together until a vindictive cop frames Fonny for the rape of Victoria, a Puerto Rican immigrant.
Jenkins is a director who wears his heart on his sleeve, sometimes a bit too much. I thought Moonlight was quite good, but it was obvious that Jenkins was way more invested in the final third of the movie, especially the diner scene, than in the rest of it. If Beale Street Could Talk features a trip to Puerto Rico, where Tish's mom (Regina King) has gone to convince Victoria and her handlers to change her testimony - she was clearly forced to identify Fonny as the culprit and now fears the ramifications of the truth, The detour to Puerto Rico requires a more conventional realism, as well as dialogue that could come out of a straightforward crime drama. Jenkins is more at ease with the elegiac romanticism of the rest of the film and employs here the kind of out of focus shots and handheld camera work so loved by uninspired American narco-thrillers set in Mexico or another generic 'Latino' environment. That results in Puerto Rico being presented as a place where people lead unappealing lives in boringly anonymous slums only defined by their grtttiness, and you could criticise Jenkins for perpetuating the kind of stereotypes about Puerto Rico, that he seeks to subvert in his depiction of Harlem and the lives of African-Americans. But man, he sure does subvert those!
Interesting, stylish dialogue has been my way into film, and the elongated scene in which Trish announces her pregrancy to her in-laws is one of the scenes of the century as far as I am concerned. Rarely have actors been allowed to delight so openly in rhetorically playful viciousness. It matters I think that this scene is set in the safety of Trish' parents' living room - solidarity is great, but being free to tell the truth of how you really feel without fearing being divided by the whites is better. What's remarkable is that the languid intensity of that scene is upheld throughout the rest of the film, playing as if it demands that you find the time to bask in love, friendship, sex, solidarity, artistry, a good smoke (vaping companies and lung doctors should really watch this film in sheer terror), good food, and good conversation. At the end of the film, It's almost startling to realise that it has actually shown only a relative few moments during a very specific period of Trish and Fony's life. It feels like we know their every thought and feeling.
This romantic approach is not just the result of Jenkins' general disposition. There is a political dimension to it, that seems to fit James Baldwin's work. I have read little of Baldwin, but have found all of it fantastic. His writings care as much about pointing out the absurdities and hypocrisies of American racism, as about advancing his literary stylistic concerns. Too much of contemporary social criticism and critical journalism forgets that second aspect, in part becuase of economic models which incentivize clickbait and parochialism, and is less effective as a result. Writing that makes an argument for a better/more interesting world should not present itself like regular slop, but as a dispatch from that world, providing an appealing window into how something else might feel and look. That's definitely what If Beale Street Could Talk is, with "Unbow your head sister!" and "We've been here long before you, and we'll remain here after you are long gone" as its driving principles.
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