Last week the BWMTSC group watched episode one of “The Underground Railroad,” Barry Jenkins’ TV adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.
This is disturbing 10-hour saga of an enslaved woman on a journey to freedom across the antebellum South by way of a literal subterranean train with conductors and secret passageways.
After watching the episode our Zoom team asked for comments from our group and the consensus seemed to be that it was too brutal and they were unlikely to continuing watching the remaining episodes.
That was not the universal response, indeed. At least two members said they plan to continue or have finished all episodes.
Series director Barry Jenkins, known for “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” that is perfectly OK.
Jenkins said in a Zoom interview ahead of the series premiere. “I wanted to empower the viewer the same way I wanted to empower the cast and the crew who were making those scenes.”
Perhaps after a devastating year with the pandemic, an onslaught of police violence and other atrocities, the saga of an enslaved woman hits hard. Indeed, one of our group tuned in ten immediately out with the comment “nor another slave movie!”
Previously, the Harriet Tubman biopic “Harriet” and Solomon Northup’s tale “12 Years A Slave” have similar themes and were well received.
When asked for advice for how to watch the show, he just had one request.
“I can’t tell you what to do. I can tell you what not to do,” he said. “Do not watch 10 straight hours of this. Do not. That is not my intention.”
The renowned movie critic Roger Ebert commented:
“The very structure of “The Underground Railroad” speaks to Jenkins’ ambition, one that somehow feels both episodic in that any of the ten chapters could be deconstructed on their own and often have standalone stories but the project gains its strength when seen as a comprehensive whole. Having said that, I would not advise viewers to binge watch this series in a weekend and think Amazon would have been wiser to release episodes weekly, allowing each of them to be absorbed in a way that binging doesn’t do. This is an experience that shouldn’t be rushed”.
There is a fantasy element in the story, as pointed out by Variety”
“Ghosts of horrors past, present and future linger at the story’s edges, flicker in and out with eerie ease. People alive, dead and somewhere in between stare into the camera with quiet, solemn clarity. Whispers fade into the background, sharing terrible secrets as urgent prayer”.
As the heroine Cora goes through each new state, community and enemy, she learns the visceral price of American racism as it chips away at her resolve and everything she loves, or could love if given a real chance.
“Underground Railroad” is about Cora, but it’s also about everyone she encounters throughout her fight for freedom, and there’s only so much her companion Mbedu can do to mitigate that as everything crashes down around Cora for good.
Finally it is worth noting Jenkins makes sure to find the human tenderness at the heart of every inhumane terror. Romance comes from the unlikeliest places. For every hard stare, there is a soft gaze.
It is a story of America told by many and by the National Association of Black and White Men Together for over 40 years. It is the history of a country built on slavery and reminds us that racism is still a legacy of that history.
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Source: Huff Post
RogerEbert.com
Variety.com