Even
the darkest periods of human history can teach us important lessons that we can
apply to our daily lives. They are, in fact, uniquely good at it. The
abominable institution of slavery in the United States and its eventual
eradication teaches us that not only is man capable of great evil, but that
there is also a resilience of the spirit that is sometimes impossible to snuff
out, no matter how bleak the circumstances. Film is just one medium that helps
us make sense of the troubled past, and Emancipation is the
latest in such attempts; however, it falls short despite its admirable acting
and interesting cinematography, as it doesn’t really offer anything new to say
and the message is often lost in its Hollywood excesses.
Will Smith is exceptional as the main
character, a runaway slave who history knows as “Whipped Peter,” the subject
(or subjects... there is some debate over whether or not “Peter” was actually a
press-created amalgamation of two different people) of the iconic and
disturbing photographs that helped spur on the abolition movement during the
Civil War. Smith is in top dramatic form here, as are his costars. Directed by
Antoine Fuqua, a man who is primarily known as an action director, Emancipation often
looks interesting as well, with its dynamic shots, unflinching grit, and boldly
un-bold color palette. Emancipation opts for a bleak,
desaturated look that is so muted it often appears black and white, a choice
that underlines the brutality of the situation at some points and leads to
distraction at others. Colors randomly choose to present themselves throughout
the film, which leant me to believe more than once that my TV was on the fritz
(fire, for instance, will sometimes be muted orange and other times will be as
gray as everything around it).
Even without this color
palette, Emancipation is bleak, violent, and often disturbing.
The script is not particularly good, full of cliches and surface-level
observations as it is, nor are the characters at all fleshed out. Peter is a
man of faith who loves his family and his god, and that is about all we ever
learn of him, other than the fact that he is a crack shot who can easily take
on a gator hand-to-hand (hand-to-mouth?) and come out on top. This latter bit
is where the movie falters the most: Directed by an action maestro, Emancipation frequently
seems more concerned with exciting set pieces than it is with making a salient
point about the horrors of slavery, and when it does settle down to say
something it is a basic statement like “we are not slaves, we are people.” True
and important, but far from groundbreaking or particularly thoughtful. This can
also apply to the violence itself, which is dialed up to eleven and comes
across as wanting to shock rather than to teach.
There are much worse films than Emancipation out
there, but there are also much better ones that not only focus on the messed up
parts of history, but also the things we can learn from them.
Emancipation is
now available on Apple TV+.
This review was first published in
the Keizertimes on February 24th, 2023. Visit at www.keizertimes.com/
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