PAST becomes
‘Antebellum’ message timely but doesn’t get across well
“Antebellum” is a beautifully shot nearmiss, a movie with a message that should resonate in the current climate but gets muddled the more you think about it. ● Its art is in the right place, you might say. But the story doesn’t hold up.
The film, the debut feature from directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, begins on a plantation with a lengthy tracking shot that descends into terror: An enslaved couple is being punished, and the situation escalates and the woman is killed. It’s horrific. All the more so because for the Confederate soldiers who run the place, it’s just another day at the office.
Eden (Janelle Monáe) is one of the enslaved people, suffering through a brutal existence. They’re not allowed to talk, not even to one another, without the permission of the soldiers. When Eden refuses to say her name, the overseer known only as Him (Eric Lange) literally brands her.
The first third of the movie is spent here, in abject misery and appalling abuse, much of it meted out by Captain Jasper (Jack Huston), quick with violence. Eli (Tongayi Chirisa) urges Eden to escape, but she preaches patience, waiting for the right time.
A new group of enslaved people arrives, including Julia (Kiersey Clemons), curiously outspoken in her entreaties to Eden. In fact, if you look closely enough, a lot of things are curious. Bush and Renz, it must be said, know how to frame a shot, and how to use composition in a powerful way.
Then one night, as Eden sleeps next to the despicable Him (he takes advantage of her in every conceivable way), a cellphone rings.
And we are in the present, in a gorgeous home where Veronica — also played by Monáe — lives with her husband and daughter. Veronica has a doctorate in sociology and is a bestselling author who makes appearances on television and at conferences, writing and talking about the disenfranchisement of Black people in the U.S., something she argues is written into the DNA of the country. She’s good at it — her takedown of a trumped-up blowhard on a TV news show makes it clear she’s not new to this debate.
An interview with an oddly familiar woman (Jena Malone, oozing curdled Southern charm and gothic evil) is more troubling.
Veronica travels to New Orleans for a conference. She’s staying at a luxury hotel, but as she tells her friend Dawn (Gabourey Sidibe), something is off. Again, pay attention to what Bush and Renz do with the camera, like when a
concierge is snidely dismissive of Veronica, after gushing over white guests. It’s troubling, one in a string of insults and annoyances. There are other more troubling developments, but they’re central to the film’s core mysteries.
Which are: How are these two stories connected, and what links Eden and Ve
ronica?
The third act explains it all. No spoilers here, but you will definitely do a lot of mental rewinding as the movie ends, and after.
The film begins with the famous William Faulkner quote from “Requiem for a Nun” — “The past is never dead. It’s
not even past.” The last part of the film works overtime to bring that quote and its meaning to life. It’s not exactly news that systemic racism didn’t end when the Civil War did. That doesn’t make it any less important to repeatedly place that message in front of people.
“Antebellum” does that, but strains so hard at pulling off its central conceit that it mutes the message somewhat.
Don’t misunderstand — any film that reminds us that the work for equality is far from done is traveling a worthy path. This one just could have done it better.