#URBAN TALE POLITIKFILM SERIES#

The grand finale weaponizes this idea, as officers once again go too far and then try to extort a cooperative testimony from Brianna, who now knows she can call on the latest iteration of Candyman for protection.

#URBAN TALE POLITIKFILM SERIES#

In artful cut-paper silhouettes reminiscent of Kara WalkerвЂ™s work, a long lineage of cruelty from police to black people minding their own business takes shape, its sorely needed vengeance coming from a series of Candymen. HeвЂ™s later revealed to be innocent, one in a cycle of black menвЂ™s wrongful murders at the hands of law enforcement, creating an enmity that fuels the continuing havoc of Candyman. A prologue set in the 70s sees young William Burke (played as an adult by the rusty-voiced Colman Domingo in the rest of the film) encounter a man he believes to be Candyman, the boyвЂ™s screams alerting the cops that shoot the man dead on sight. While the 1992 film trained its focus on the societal violence of displacement and gentrification in neighborhoods like the impoverished Cabrini-Green, DaCosta bites off a good deal more to chew on by working in the epidemic of police brutality. As a gay couple, and an interracial one at that, he and GradyвЂ™s casual, unremarked-upon presence signals the partial arrival of a future that felt remote as recently as the 90s. Troy gets in a couple of friendly cracks at the gratuitously handsome AnthonyвЂ™s expense вЂ“ he needs to spend less time with the weights and more with the brushes if heвЂ™s going to support Brianna, Troy ribs вЂ“ but his function goes beyond simple comic relief. Though the main conflict burns between Anthony and his gallery curator girlfriend Brianna (Teyoonah Parris), her brother Troy (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) and his boyfriend Grady (Kyle Kaminsky) pop in to lighten things up every few scenes with some snappy levity. The Gen Z teens tauntingly summoning the Candyman in a possible nod to the Slenderman stabbing of 2014 qualifies as one, and a pair of characters without counterparts in the original would be another. Smaller gestures here and there modernize the concept of Candyman, a hook-handed ghoul that appears to murder those foolhardy enough to speak his name five times into a mirror. Anyone whoвЂ™s sat through a snoozer art appreciation course will get at least a chuckle from the merciless accuracy of the strained casual tone adopted when using a word like вЂњreifiedвЂќ. They talk circles around one another in post-collegiate jargon, their gasbag discussion of paradigms and frameworks completely out of joint with the urgency of the trauma AnthonyвЂ™s set out to depict.

DaCostaвЂ™s treatment of the Chicago arts scene harkens back to this playful pretentiousness, highfalutin language now exchanged between Abdul-MateenвЂ™s вЂњBasquiat-assвЂќ hipster Anthony and a haughty (white, it should be mentioned) critic. All her big talk about socioeconomic disparities and institutional iniquities mostly falls on uninterested ears, everyone being more focused on actually living their lives than translating them into a thesis. Photograph: Photo Credit: Parrish Lewis/Universal Pictures and MGM PicturesДЄt the heart of Bernard RoseвЂ™s initial take on the material, thereвЂ™s a culture clash between academic-minded Helen Lyles and the subjects that sheвЂ™s researching in ChicagoвЂ™s historically mistreated Cabrini-Green housing projects.

Urban tale politikfilm