Antebellum

In Antebellum, the feature length debut of the writing and directing team of Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, I got the sense that the duo are skilled filmmakers and visual artists.  As the film went on, I also got the sense that they have a long way to go when it comes to storytelling.  This is a thriller that desperately wants to make a statement.  But, by the end, I found myself asking just what that statement really was.  And, was what I was watching really all that Bush and Renz had to say in the end?

But before all that happens, there is something to get excited about right from the start.  The movie opens with a gorgeous, long and intriguing tracking shot of the camera starting at the deceptively docile facade of a Southern Plantation mansion, where a little girl casually picks flowers for her mother.  As the camera continues to move past this scene, we see Confederate Civil War soldiers marching along and abusing some of the slaves who work on the Plantation.  The camera still continues to show the deplorable conditions of the slaves.  We have gone from false beauty and tranquility, to harsh reality in one unbroken shot.  You get the sense that Bush and Renz really wanted to make their mark with their first studio film.  They have swung for the fences here, and I applaud them.  

Much like how that opening shows us what's really going on behind the beautiful imagery, the movie itself soon reveals that there is very little that the duo are trying to say.  They have dressed their film up beautifully, and given us strong performances, but it's practically all cliches and half-baked notions underneath.  There is surprisingly little emotion or true anger here.  They are simply regurgitating imagery from every movie about slavery made in the past few decades.  We learn nothing about the people inhabiting this story.  They are simply filling the roles required.  Our lead character is Eden (Janelle Monáe), a frightened black woman who has tried to escape from the Plantation in the past, and has the hot iron brand upon her skin to show it.  She lives a pitiful existence where she picks cotton all day under the watchful eye of the cruel and usually drunken soldier (Jack Huston), and at night the equally despicable Confederate leader known only as "Him" (Eric Lange), beats her and then frequently forces himself upon her until he gets tired.

Then, in a twist worthy of The Twilight Zone, the movie switches gears on us, and shows us Eden in the present day, where she is now called Veronica, a respected lecturer on black women's rights, as well as a devoted wife and mother.  She lives in a sleek and beautiful upscale home with a husband (Marque Richardson) and daughter (London Boyce), makes frequent appearances on Cable News where she successfully argues her opinions against narrow-minded old bigots on TV, and has legions of fans through her books.  Of course, even in the present day, all the money and power that Veronica holds means little to certain people.  When she checks into a fancy hotel for her book tour, she still has to deal with a narrow minded concierge who books her the worst table at a trendy restaurant when she tries to have a night out with her two best girl friends.

So, what is really going on here?  Are Eden and Veronica the same person somehow?  Is there something paranormal, or some kind of time travel element at work here?  All intriguing options for a thriller that wants to explore the idea of race relations and issues, and all options that Bush and Renz have decided to completely ignore.  Instead, they go for a much more disappointing answer that becomes even more disappointing when you realize they're not really interested in answering or explaining anything that they introduce into their story.  Yes, we do get a basic explanation as to what is going on, but it raises more questions than answers.  I wish I could go into more detail, as I think many of the film's problems stem from just how undeveloped the revelation to all of this is.  I could just put a Spoiler Warning at the top of this review, and go to town, but I don't like doing that.

If a disappointing plot twist and undeveloped ideas were all that was wrong with Antebellum, it would just be a disappointment, but it goes deeper than that.  This is a movie that trots out ugly imagery with nothing to say about it.  In the opening moments, we witness a slave girl trying to make her escape before she is lassoed around her neck (in slow motion, so we get to see every detail) by a soldier, and then is shot by her pursuer.  There is no anger or statement.  The filmmakers are just showing us cruel images that we have seen in other movies about slavery.  Nothing here resonates, because we know nothing about these people.  Even when the truth as to what is going on is revealed, we're given little information about the people involved.  So, we're just watching random acts of cruelty.

This is the kind of movie where you see what the filmmakers are trying to do, but they don't quite have the vision to take their idea as far as it can go.  They're holding back here, and simply giving us the bare minimum.  So, while Bush and Renz show that they have a keen visual eye, they also show that they are less strong when it comes to the key issues of character, plot and coherency. 

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