Although since the victory of ‘Parasites’ the prototype of an “Oscar movie” has already been abandoned, that does not mean that there are no production companies that try to sneak in a couple of biopics that once might have scratched nominations. This is the case of ‘Till: the crime that changed everything’, a film with the vocation of “story that needs to be told” but without a soul, filmed to resonate with the always cyclical American society. The result is, sadly, as impressive in its content as it is empty in its continent.
the land of opportunity
Childish Gambino sang in his immortal anthem ‘This is America’ “You just a black man in this world, you just a barcode”, which shows that anger in the streets may have increased over the years, but racism in American society has not changed that much since the times that are reflected in ‘Till’. The story on the tape (a black boy beaten to death by whites for talking to a sales clerk) it has to be told and remembered, yes, but not in such an overwhelmingly formulaic way.
Chinonye Chukwu is capable of creating iconic moments and frustrating the viewer in his quest for justice for Bo, but It’s not enough to lift a movie that fails in an excessively basic script. The absolute lack of nuances (the good ones are great, the bad ones are infamous) weighs down a script that could have given more of itself but settles for transferring the facts of Emmett Till’s Wikipedia page to celluloidconfident that the public will do the job of reflecting the news in the footage.
The biopic formula is what you expect from minute oneincluding the conclusions at the end that tell you the future of the protagonists and how their actions affected the real world. It does not try to innovate in substance or formand for a European audience you cannot fully empathize with history: after all, it is not a reflection of our reality, but of a country broken from its roots that no one has managed to completely fix.
Sweethome, Mississippi
‘Till’ is predictable and lacks punch in its direction, yes, but not for this reason its main actress, Danielle Deadwyler, stops in her dramatic composition of Mamie, a courageous mother whose suffering is great throughout the film but, paradoxically, he stands out more in his contained moments, when his anger is mixed with resignation and hope. Although the actress has been left out of the race for the Oscars, she is one of the greats of the year and no one can take it away from her.
But everything that she manages to elevate ‘Till’ is not defining: the film itself surprises with a flat plot that ends up falling into the repetitive, proving that the visual impact (the iconic image of Bo’s face being smashed) is not enough to sustain interest. That’s not to say it’s bad at all, but yes. It’s a commonplace, a tape that you have seen without having seen and that does the work of dramatized documentary.
AND none of this invalidates the powerful story of Mamie and Bo, which has already been portrayed in dozens of plays, movies, series, paintings and even songs and is well known beyond the pond because it effectively changed racial rights forever. In fact, I have no doubt that the impact of this tape and the memory of what happened in American society, especially in African-American society, is harsh and necessary, but ‘Till’ has a state of mind in the viewer and a social background that occurs in American society but that, beyond its borders, loses effectiveness.
burning mississippi
It is impossible to watch this movie and not feel the blood heat up when checking the treatment that was given to African-Americans in the 50s. It is surprising, in fact, to see that after World War II, at the time of the supposed boom in the American way of life, racial persecution and beatings were not only socially permitted, but also by justice. The history lesson is shocking, but so would it have been in any format thrown at us.
‘Till’ uses a formula already worn in an audiovisual scene that already is not innocent enough to accept any type of presentation just because it is wrapped in a powerful story. However, there are scenes in which he manages to get out of the usual audiovisual biographies and fictionalize key moments in the story with overwhelmingly powerful dialogues (“They have killed my son again,” Mamie muses at the trial). Sadly, it does not become the biopic it aspires to be and ends up settling for a common and obvious achievement.
I wish I could say otherwise, but ‘Till’, beyond its prodigious lead performance and incredible history lesson, remains in no man’s land, as a very useful biopic to understand contemporary America but it will resonate more in those parts than here. It’s shocking, yes, but also tasteless. And that’s the worst that can happen to a biopic.