The Underground Railroad (Jenkins, 2021)
I mentioned this one in a chat with Emile Donovan for RNZ Nights recently and realised that it deserves to be singled out once again.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad was the first real prestige show commissioned by Prime Video but landed before too many people – at least here in Aotearoa – were aware of it.
I reviewed it during one of the stints I had filling in on RNZ’s At the Movies but that script is not online. Here’s a lightly edited version (or you can listen to the whole thing including clips, here):
As you might imagine from the Oscar winning maker of Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, The Underground Railroad is immaculate, from conception to execution. It’s the best film I’ve seen this year, and even if I’ll never see it on a giant screen, or own a Blu-ray disc of it, or see it with the film society, it deserves to be considered as an important piece of cinema and film lovers should seek it out.
Like the novel, the story is set in a fictionalised, heightened, version of the pre-Civil War southern states. We follow an escaped slave, Cora, played by Thusu Mbedu, as she travels from state to state, looking for safety, pursued by the indefatigable bounty hunter Ridgeway, played by Joel Edgerton.
Each episode is a chapter named after a state she passes through and each state is not only a nightmarish, embellished, exaggerated version of the historical truth, each state is also a metaphoric representation of some aspect of Black life in America – the entirety of it, from transportation to educational inequality to modern day police brutality.
In Georgia, she witnesses unimaginable cruelty and escapes – searching for her missing mother. In South Carolina, it appears as if Blacks are citizens and can move freely and safely among the white population until we realise that they are suffering the most shameful medical experiments and interventions.
And in Indiana, she discovers an idyllic Black owned vineyard and community – prosperous and harmonious until we realise that they are only tolerated by the local white community as long as they don’t “act up” or “make trouble”.
And then, there is the railroad itself. In reality, the Underground Railroad was its own kind of metaphor for the network of safe houses and trails that allowed slaves to find their way to the Northern States. But Whitehead and Jenkins ask, what if? What if it was a real train? What would that feel like? What sort of independence and audacity would that represent?
The Underground Railroad is so much more than another slavery drama because it foregrounds the total Black experience in emotionally as well as historically authentic ways. If you are a white audience, Jenkins and his collaborators aren’t really talking to you and aren’t interested in mediating that experience for you. And the film is all the more powerful and meaningful for it.
Also reviewed in that edition of At the Movies, the documentary Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In and the French comedy Bye Bye Morons.
Where to watch The Underground Railroad
Worldwide: Streaming on Prime Video
The series has also just been released on physical media from the Criterion Collection.
Further listening
Here’s a link to my chat with Tony Stamp on RNZ Nights last Thursday. We talked about Ka Whaiwhai Tonu: Struggle Without End, The Royal Hotel and the new library streaming service Hoopla.
Further reading
I’ve been enjoying the opportunity to write profiles of some unsung Aotearoa film contributors for NZ On Screen. Here’s one that’s just been posted: Andy Roelants, 60 years as a camera professional and owner of Metro Film in Auckland. In the piece, he talks about getting his start in Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory, filming the Wahine Disaster and why focus-pulling gets you closer to the story than cinematography.
