The Last Black Man In San Francisco—directed by Joe Talbot. Drama. 121 minutes Color 2019
★★★★★
The Story: Two friend join forces to bring to fruition the dream of one of them.
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Movies vital to be seen this year fall in line immediately behind this one.
White cinema coasts on by on the glib zeitgeist of its fads. Black films are more interesting and more necessary. They have available to them a greater range than white films because their characters have more at stake, so their situations reveal more, explore more, and offer keener human truths.
The premise of The Last Black Man In San Francisco is simple as pie. It is illustrated everywhere but spelled out nowhere.
This starts at the quirky beginning of the picture which reveals a San Francisco I have never seen, vistas never come upon, streets unknown to me, and I live here. Even if one did not live here, the spectacle of these places would disorient one, as would the behavior of the people shown and the way they are shown. So from the start we are in the hands of a director whose treatment of his material we have not experienced before and do not surrender to readily, as our trust in his storytelling is alerted, challenged, and beguiled.
Two black males pitch in on a task. Yes. But what we see play out before us is the lack of any foundation for young black males to prosper. They are reduced to pipe dreams, street corner braggadocio, and the rant of preaching. That is to say to hot air. That is to say to jive.
Don’t we know the pipe dream these two fellows shoot for will fail? Not because they are black, but because of the law of the land which has inherent in it a reasonable justice. But still, does one not believe that these two young men, if they put their heads together, could really accomplish something? But will they? What’s the obstacle? And is it insurmountable?
The obstacle is that black folks in this country are treated as immigrants. They are treated as newcomers without the welcome. They are treated like unwanted interlopers. The difference between the way blacks are treated and the way actual immigrants, from Central America, say, are treated is that blacks of this country have for so long a 400 years already paid their dues that they have no natural response available to their lack of welcome but the impoverished retreats of insanity, ghetto, or crime.
The two men here are native sons. They are not babies but are at least thirty. One is a butcher by trade and another a nurse. Both have dreams, the butcher to bring to life the world around him in drawings and plays—a perfectly valid vocation—the other to realize that that heartfelt dream and first and most basic need of all immigrants once they arrive, which is to make a home.
But they are denied the foundation for it. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the foundation for it. This is a foundation of air. But it is a true foundation nonetheless. That is why is it called a foundation. As is a foundation of expectation that they may establish a home. That too is a foundation of air. Upon such foundations is American grounded.
But is hot air all these two men are to be allowed?
Outside of the rigid spectacles of sport or song, do ordinary black folks deserve no better than base pay? Or worse than immigrants, must a racial past or complexion open to them no hope for their future and admit them no latitude?
None of this does the film pronounce out loud. But the foundation of spirit denied them—that is the hidden enemy facing these two ordinary men. They are not gangsters or drug dealers or hotshot academics. Not bright, not special. But exactly the ones we want to see.
The modern American black male cannot make his way, because he is treated as not yet a citizen. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if doled out remain unexperienced to black folks as a custom of the country, just as it would be to anyone. It is also unknown to those who deprive others of this foundation. And black males themselves do this to other black males, and, in this, the black dance with a white world remains a dance of concrete.
These are my underlying notions about the film, none of which will induce you to see it. But, listen to me, the film is impressive. Perfectly shot, directed, edited, with remarkable locations and set decoration. Ideally cast and impeccably performed in every part. Full of vitality, imagination, and constant interest. It is a masterful entertainment because of what you will find inside you as you see it.
What must draw you to see it is that its story and way are unexpected.
Unexpected in all areas in which I have praised it.
Its impression on me may in no way resemble yours—except it is bound to be aesthetic. It is bound to be your response to witness a beautiful thing.