12/18/19 - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) - 7/10
It can’t shake off its play-ness, so obviously adapted and partitioned as such, but it delivers power, emotion, and a vivid cinematic ferocity. This film weaves in and out of the shadows, despite putting on a lively showing, cutting and stabbing at the subtext of each relationship and social construct. It’s two outstanding performances not only carry the material but emblazon it, for it is about the souls of the people, both of them but black people as a whole as well, rather than the music surrounding it.
Viola is a volatile and bubbling presence, exuding authority that cannot mask pain. The weariness and tempered rebellious acceptance bleeds down the eye, forming black pits that can eat the heart of lessers. She is bravado and bombast, and she lives for the times to put herself over others, being her attempt to claim some type of power over her life.
Boseman steals the spotlight though, rightfully, providing an extensive performance. Full of explosiveness, anguish, sneer, youthful exuberance and old soul pain; he is sexy, overconfident, and altogether flawed. His last was probably his best, saddeningly.
This is a story of oppression, repression, and conscription. The variety of pain and burden carried in the black soul emanates from each eye, every lip, and all the notes owned but sold. The music serving as a communal bond and a retaliatory conformation of life lived low, only to be gobbled up and, again, exploited by white folk. It’s a sad story but told in a poignantly fun way.
